Frog Baby 2: Taking Care of Tad
by Eileen
Summary: Sequel to Frog Baby. At long last, Chapter 10! Tad gets an I.Q. test. CURRENT STATUS: Working on new chapter.
1. Default Chapter

FROG BABY 2: TAKING CARE OF TAD

(Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. They own me. :) Anyway, this is the sequel to Frog Baby.)

Todd Tolensky sat on the couch, his baby brother Tad lying on his stomach, watching "Teletubbies". Actually Tad, who was three months old, was on the verge of falling asleep, so only Todd was really watching it. He wasn't a big fan of "Teletubbies", but a lot of things had changed since Tad had come into his life.

Like battling the X-Geeks. Lance hadn't been happy when Todd showed up late, with Tad in a carrier across his chest.

"What are you doing?"

"I couldn't **leave **him! He's just a little baby!"

"I thought Mystique was watching him!"

"She had to go out." Only the top of Tad's little head poked out of the carrier. Todd was glad he had changed the infant before they left the house. If he could figure out how to stick a bottle in there too, they'd be all set.

"He'll get hurt!" 

"No he won't! Not if you guys cover me!"

The X-Men hadn't known what to make of the little bundle strapped across Toad's chest. 

"What is **that**?" Wolverine demanded.

"It's a baby," Toad said. "My baby brother."

"You have a baby brother?" Cyclops said incredulously.

"Like, no way! Where'd you steal that baby from?" Shadowcat looked at Toad like he was some kind of criminal.

"I didn't steal him! My so-called dad dumped him on me!" Toad insisted.

"So you say," Storm said. She looked skeptically at the tiny head poking out of the cotton/Lycra cocoon.

"He **is** my brother!" Toad shot back.

"There's an easy way to prove that," Cyclops suggested. "We could do a DNA test on him to find out—"

"Hey! You ain't getting your hands on Tad! You'll brainwash him and take him away from me!"

Tad yawned, opened his eyes, and looked around.

"It's a simple test," Jean Grey said. She reached for the baby, but Toad leapt away. "Todd, please! We won't hurt him, I promise!"

"Yeah, that's what you said when you talked **me **into coming to your place. I nearly got my butt fried! Not to mention that psycho 'training' session! No, you stay away from me and Tad!"

"Tad?"

"Yeah, it's short for Tadpole." 

**"Tadpole?"** Everyone looked at Toad like he'd been drinking floor cleaner.

"What's wrong with Tadpole? It's cute!" Toad said defensively.

"**I **came up with Tadpole!" Blob boasted.

"Probably the only thought you ever had in your life," Avalanche retorted. Blob either didn't hear, or decided not to answer that. (Most likely the former.)

Tad started to fuss a bit, but then calmed down when Toad patted his back. At least, he **thought **it was his back. Hard to tell under the covering. After a few pats, Tad went back to sleep.

"Okay, Todd," Jean said, "we'll let you sit in with him while we do the test."

"Don't hurt him. He's only a little baby!"

"Like, we'd never hurt babies!" Shadowcat exclaimed. "Besides, he's so cute." She stroked the little wisps of hair on Tad's head.

"I'm taking him for walks from now on," Avalanche whispered to Toad.

"Yeah, sure you are," Toad shot back. "I will **not **let you use Tad in your insane scheme to get Kitty to like you! You do your own dirty work, pal!"

"Guys!" Jean interrupted. "Let's call a temporary truce until the test results are back. It won't do Tad any good if we're all fighting like this."

"She's got a point," Avalanche said. He extended his hand to Cyclops. "Truce?"

"Truce."

"Now this won't hurt a bit . . ."

Todd held Tad very still as Jean drew some blood from him. Todd was the one who was scared; Tad had no idea what was going on. He cried a bit when the needle went in, and that made Todd even more nervous.

"I thought you said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"Chill, Toad, he's fine," Kurt Wagner said. He reached a finger out to Tad, who clamped down on it. Fortunately, he didn't have any teeth yet, but he had a grip that was hard to break. "Zhe little darling's hungry, I think."

"Oh, no. I forgot his bottle!" Todd rushed out to the car to check. "How could I forget his bottle? Hope I didn't leave the diapers home too." No, they were in the bag, but the bottles were suspiciously absent.

"Uh, Todd, I think you dropped these."

He turned and saw Scott holding the bottle bag. "Oh . . . right. Uh, thanks, Summers."

"No problem." Scott went back inside, and a moment later, so did Todd. While he fed Tad, he asked, "What happens now?"

"Now we need to draw some of your blood, and Tad's, and compare them to see how close a genetic match they are. We'll also run the test to see if Tad has the X gene," Professor Xavier said.

Tad looked around at the strange room. He didn't seem to be bothered by all the fuss—in fact, he was actually having fun. He didn't even cry when they drew his blood. Todd, on the other hand, screamed bloody murder.

"Ow! What are ya trying to do, kill me?"

"Easy, Todd, it's just a little pinch, and then it's all over," Jean reassured him.

"Little pinch? That felt like someone trying to cut my arm off!" He yanked his sleeve back down and snapped, "C'mon, Tad, we're leaving!"

Tad was currently whirling around in the air in Kitty's arms. "Wheeeee!" she laughed. He was laughing too.

"Uh, Kitty," Lance said, "I don't think you should be doing that. Not after he just ate."  
"Huh? Doing what—"

BLERT! A curdled mess landed on the front of Kitty's pink sweater.

"Yuck!" She tried to wipe at it with a cloth, but that just made it worse.

"Yeah, he did that to me last night," Fred said.

"Uh . . . we'll just go now," said Todd. He gathered up all the baby stuff, put Tad back in the carrier (he seemed fine now), and hoped he could find his way to the front door.

"I'll show you out," Jean said. 

They followed her upstairs. At the door she said, "We'll call you with the test results."  
"Yeah, you do that," Todd said, still rubbing his arm.

That had been two days ago. He knew that for a fact, because they'd gone out the day after he'd gotten over the flu. Tad had slept in Pietro's room the first night, Lance's the second, and last night he'd bunked with, of all people, Mystique. She'd surprised everyone by becoming attached to the little guy. This morning she'd started knitting him a blanket.

Todd was about to bring Tad into his room and put him in his crib when the phone rang.

When Tad let out a little cry, Todd patted his bottom until he settled down again. He answered the phone before it could ring again. "Hello?"

"I thought you might like to know the test results are in," Jean told him.

"And?"

"Tad is your brother."

"Oh. Thanks. Is he . . . a mutant?"

"Yes, he tested positive."

"Well, I figured that. Uh, was there anything else?"

"Yes, there is, actually. Do you know where Tad's mother is?"

"No." Todd tried to keep his voice down, so Tad wouldn't wake up, but he couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I've been calling and calling that worthless excuse for a father, but he never picks up the phone. I **know **he's there, but he doesn't want to talk to me. How could he do this to us?"

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd know, either. Thanks for the info."

"Wait," Jean said. "The reason I asked about Tad's mother is that if she has other children, they might also be positive."

"Yeah, well, so what? They can't be older than nine or ten anyway. We'll fight over them when they get their powers."

"Let me know if you find them," she said, and hung up.

Todd sighed as he replaced the receiver on the hook. Then he carried Tad into his room and laid him in his crib.

"We don't need that jerk, do we, Taddy?" he murmured as he spread a blanket over the sleeping baby. "You and me don't need anyone but each other."

He tiptoed out of the room and shut the door.


	2. Tad Gets a Cold

2. Tad Gets a Cold 

"Morning," Todd said. He carried Tad into the kitchen and strapped him into his seat. He wasn't quite big enough for a high chair yet, so they'd bought him a little bouncer seat. It vibrated, too, which always made him laugh.

The others acknowledged Todd with assorted grunts. Mystique was busy knitting, her needles flashing back and forth so fast he could barely see them. She was almost done with the ducky blanket, and was planning on a little sweater set next, if she could find her crochet hooks. 

Todd got a bottle out of the fridge and heated it up, then poured himself what was left of the cold cereal. Trying to eat with one hand while feeding Tad with the other wasn't as easy as he thought it would be.

There was a small sound.

"Did he just sneeze?" Todd asked. He looked down at Tad, who sneezed again.

Todd went into extreme panic mode. "Oh no! Call 911! Get a doctor! He's gonna die!"

"Will you calm down?" Lance held him back before he could hurt himself (or anyone else). "He's fine!"

Tad started to cough. It didn't sound good.

"See? He's **dying**!" Todd insisted.

"He's not dying, you idiot!" Pietro snapped. 

**"YES HE IS!"**

The click-click of the knitting needles stopped. "Something going on that I should know about?"

"Tad's dying!" Todd exclaimed.

Tad grabbed Lance's finger and started chewing on it. (Or as close to chewing as you can get with no teeth.)

"He looks fine to me." Mystique went back to her knitting.

"Uh . . . someone wanna get this kid off me?" Lance asked.

"Tad, NO!" Todd pulled his baby brother away. "Don't do that! You'll give Lance all your yucky germs and then he'll get sick and be impossible to live with!"

Lance glared at him. Tad just drooled.

"We should take him to the doctor," Fred said.

"But he didn't even break the skin!" Lance protested.

"Not you, Tad! He's the one who's sick, remember?"

So they went to see the doctor who lived next door to them.

The doctor wasn't home at the moment, but his mother, who usually watched Tad during the week, let them in.

"What can I do for you, boys?"

"It's my baby brother! He's really sick and he needs help! Where's the doc?"

"He's out on an emergency call right now, but maybe I can do something to help you?" the older woman said.

"He seems to be a little congested," Lance told her.

"A **little**? Listen to him breathe! He's practically gasping for air!" Todd was on the verge of hysteria.

"He doesn't sound that bad to me," Mrs. Ryan said. "Matter of fact, he seems pretty healthy to me."

"I'll wait for a professional opinion," Todd said.

Lance rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Ryan. I'm sure he doesn't mean to be so melodramatic. We'll just give Tad some Vitamin C and keep him indoors the rest of the day." He took Tad back and the baby coughed in his face.

"Yuck!" Clearly Tad hadn't understood the warnings about not sharing germs. He just gurgled happily. Lance, however, did not look happy.

"Great, now **I'm **gonna get sick! I hate being sick!"

"I'llgotothestoreandgetsomestuffforhim." Pietro was off before anyone could stop him. He was back before they knew he was gone. "The pharmacist said to give him this stuff. Directions are on the bottle."

"Ooh, grape flavor," Todd said. "You'll like that, huh, Tad?"

"What about me?" Lance wailed. "I got yucky baby germs all over me!"

"Ah, you'll live," Pietro said.

Just for that, Lance breathed on the back of his neck.

"I guess we'll be going now," Todd said. He put Tad back in his carrier. "See ya Monday."

"Unless we're all dead of Baby Plague," Lance grumbled.

The first dose of Tad's medicine did not go down well. Even though it was grape-flavored, Tad seemed to know it was medicine, and he spit it out all over Todd.

"No, no, Taddy!" Todd tried again, with the same result. He went and got Fred to help him hold the baby down, and both of them got covered in the stuff. It took half a dozen tries to finally get enough medicine into Tad, and then they all had to change their grape-medicine-splashed clothes.

Lance, meanwhile, had holed up in his room, drinking gallons of orange juice in an effort not to get sick. It didn't do any good. When he didn't come down to dinner, Mystique went to get him, and found him in bed, surrounded by a pile of crumpled tissues that, laid end to end, could have reached all the way to Mars.

Tad, though, was much better. The medicine, once it actually got into him, had worked wonders. After dinner he lay on Todd's bed, giggling at something he saw on TV. Nearly everything he saw on TV made him laugh. At the moment, Tinky-Winky was falling down. Tad's cute little baby laugh rang through the air. And he wasn't coughing at all.

But someone else was. Todd went downstairs to investigate. 

"You okay, yo?" he asked Pietro.

"No, I'm dying! I think Lance gave me his bug on purpose. He wants everyone to be as miserable as he is." Pietro blew his nose and moaned. "How's Tad?"

"He's fine now. The medicine worked. There's still some left . . ."

"No thanks. That stuff makes me sleepy."

"Okay, whatever." Todd went back to his own room and put Tad in his crib. Then he watched TV until it was time for bed.

Maybe he **had **been silly about Tad this morning. What was a little cold, after all?  
He turned off the light and went to sleep.

The next morning, Todd woke up and was starting to get out of bed when he suddenly felt his nose getting plugged up. Then before he could stop it, he felt a really powerful sneeze erupt from his nose. 

_Great,_ he thought. _Now **I'm **dying!_


	3. Author's Note/Apology

I am so, so sorry I haven't gotten back to this in so long. I seem to have hit a snag—the story got sad all of a sudden, and I had to bring it back to happiness, or at least the usual goofiness. I am working on getting it up by the end of next week, so be on the lookout.  
  
Again, my apologies to all those who thought I'd forgotten this little treasure. Thanks for being there. 


	4. The War With Mr. Possum

3. The War With Mr. Possum 

(A/N: Mr. Rabbit belongs to my S.O./writing partner Chris. The other puppet characters are my own invention.)

Dawn broke over the Brotherhood house. As golden fingers caressed the old, battered woodwork, inside all was still.

Lance Alvers was draped across his bed, snoring lightly. A shadowy form glided to the side of his bed. It bent down, close to his ear, and said:

**"GOOD MORNING, LANCE!"**

Lance crashed onto the floor. He untangled himself from the blankets and came face to face with a felt rabbit puppet.

**"MR. RABBIT SAYS TIME TO GET UP!"** Pietro Maximoff squeaked in the voice of the puppet. (At least it wasn't the anatomically correct one.)

"Mr. Rabbit can . . ." The rest was a mumbled string of incoherent curses as Lance rooted around on the floor for some pants.

"**AH AH AH! DON'T WANT TO USE THOSE NASTY WORDS WHERE TAD CAN HEAR!"**

"It's Saturday! Why do I need to get up this early on a Saturday? What time is it, anyway?"

**"SIX FORTY-FIVE!"**

"Can I talk to you, not the puppet?"

"**SORRY! **I mean, sorry."

"So why are we getting up at the crack of dawn?" Lance groped around and found a shirt that was at least halfway decent.

"Cause Her Highness says so." Pietro sighed and pulled Lance along the floor. "She says we all need to be at some stupid meeting about some new mutant that the X-Geeks will probably end up recruiting anyway . . ."

Lance jumped to his feet. "I'm going back to bed."

"No you're not." Mystique herself yanked him by the hair and dragged him out into the hall. "You are going to go down and join us. End of story."

Lance opened his mouth to protest, but one glare from Mystique cut him off before the words could come out. "Stupid training session," he muttered, low enough so she couldn't hear him.

At the Xavier Institute, Scott Summers studied the computer printout in front of him. "You sure this is the right house?" he asked Professor Xavier.

"Yes, once I cross-checked the street address with our records. I would recommend that you take Logan with you to keep an eye on things while I make arrangements for Storm to interview our new recruit."

"Isn't she a little . . . young?" Scott asked. "I've never heard of a nine-year-old having these kinds of abilities before."

"It's not inconceivable, though it **is** unusual," Xavier replied. "She does have the gene on both sides of the family, according to our records."

There was a file between them labeled HILL, LINDSAY. Scott opened it and read a bit of her background—and it was, to put it mildly, fascinating stuff. The girl's mother, a psychiatrist, was a low-level telepath, and her father also possessed the mutant gene, although in him it was dormant.

"Makes you wonder," he said, "how many other X-positives are out there and don't even know it."

"Someday," Xavier said, "we'll be able to test earlier, possibly even at birth. For now, we do what we can."

Jean Gray entered the room and looked at both of them. "I hate to interrupt, but there's a bit of a problem with finding the girl."

"What problem?"

"Her mother has just left the family home and taken two of the children with her."

"**Two** of them?" Scott asked. "I thought she only had two."

Jean shook her head. "Dr. Hill gave birth to a third child about five months ago. All of a sudden, he turned up missing. We're trying to find him or her . . ."

"We need to find all four of them," said Xavier. "And bring them here so the other two children can be tested."

Tad was in his bouncer seat with Toad as they walked through the park. The Brotherhood's training exercises were down at the far end, just beyond the duck pond. 

"Gah gee ah," Tad gurgled.

"Hey, Taddy," Toad said. "Let's sit here and play in the sandbox. Okay?"

"Dah!" Toad gently lifted Tad out of the seat and put him in the sandbox. "Gee mah!"

"Yeah, what you said."

Across the way, the Brotherhood were doing something that was supposed to be training. However, it looked more like a Keystone Kops audition to Todd.

Mystique saw him and glared at him. "Why aren't you taking part in this training session?" she demanded.

"But if I do, who's gonna watch Tad?"

Tad rolled over and tried to eat some sand. "No, no, Taddy! Yucky! Don't! That's not good for you!"

Tad paid no attention to his older brother's admonitions; he was having too much fun in the sandbox. "Gah!"

Todd picked the baby up and sat him back in his seat. "No eating sand," he told Tad sternly.

"Gah bah gah doo!" Tad gurgled. He grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in the air. "Mah gah boo dee!"

"Aah! My eyes!" Toad complained, trying to get the sand out. All he succeeded in doing was rubbing it in further. Mystique sighed and sent Blob to fetch Toad.

"Mystique says you gotta come over here right now," Blob said.

"I'm blind! I'm scarred for life! Tad, what have you done, you bad baby?"

Tad gurgled and threw more sand, which fortunately didn't hit anyone this time. "What is it with that kid?" Blob sighed.

"It hurts! IT HURTS!" Toad shouted, still rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, be quiet, you big baby!" Lance snapped. "It's only a little sand!"

Toad was still hopping around like a crazy person when Mystique stormed over to him. "What exactly are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

"My eyes!" Toad shouted in blind (no pun intended) panic. "I can't see anything!"

"Oh, stop it!" Mystique grumbled, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and dragging him to the practice area. "It's only a little sand! You're not having a heart attack!"

**"AW, CHEER UP, TODDY!" **Mr. Rabbit said. Toad hated Mr. Rabbit, and hated Pietro for bringing the puppet along. **"IT'LL BE FUN!"**

Mystique grabbed the puppet and tore it into little felt pieces. "The next time I catch you with one of your little friends, I will rip you apart! Got it?"

A terrified Pietro shrank back from Mystique's wrath. "Sorry, Boss Lady," he mumbled.

"I should hope so," Mystique snapped. With that, the training resumed (such as it was). Tad watched, playing with his little stuffed doll.

There was a shrill chirping noise from the phone currently sitting in Mystique's pocket. She picked it up and reluctantly answered. "Hello?"

"What are you doing right now?" Magneto demanded.

"We're trying to have a training session," she grumbled.

"A new mutant has been detected somewhere in the city."

"Really? Who? Where?" She signaled the boys to stop what they were doing.

"Her name is Lindsay Hill. She's somewhere in Bayville, but I'm not sure where. The family's dropped out of sight. It's up to you to track them down."

"Why don't we just grab her when she comes out of school? What's she look like?"

A tiny photo popped up on the phone screen. The words "Don't mess this up" floated beneath it.

"Get in the car, boys," she ordered. "We have work to do."

"What about our training session?" Lance asked.

"Our plans have changed. We're on retrieval duty today."

"Retrieving who?"

Mystique rolled her eyes. "I'll explain on the way. You just drive."

"What about Tad?" asked Toad.

"We'll bring him with us!"

"O-Okay," Toad said, hopping back to pick up Tad in his seat. The infant had pulled up a handful of grass and was chewing on it.

"No, Tad! Yucky!"

Tad just looked at him.

"Yucky." Toad pried the grass out of his tiny hand and then scooped what hadn't already been swallowed out of his mouth.

"This from someone who eats bugs," Lance said.

Just for that, Todd thwacked him on the side of the head with his tongue.

"Ow!"

"Stop fooling around!" Mystique screamed. "Get in the car now before I kill you!"

The Brotherhood shrank back from the screaming madwoman, and got in the car.

"Hey." Fred had his second original thought of his lifetime. "If it's Saturday, why are we picking her up at school?"

Mystique rolled her eyes. "She's in an extra-credit program! Now less talk and more speed!"

"I'm at the limit as it is!" Lance complained.

It took them forever to get to the school . . .

. . . and they were too late. The X-Men had beaten them to the girl, by mere moments, it looked like.

"Aw, no!" Toad complained. "If we only could have got here a few minutes sooner . . ."

"Maybe if we didn't have a ton of baby toys to pick up, we would have," Pietro snapped.

Toad gave him a death glare. "Shut up, you baby-hater!"

"I don't hate babies! All I said was—"

"**Both **of you shut up!" Mystique hissed. "I want to hear what they're saying."

Toad and Lance flinched, then fell silent.

The girl's mother, though she hadn't heard Mystique, also became silent. If only she had turned around at that exact moment, a lot of worry and heartache would have been avoided. But she just hurried off with the girl, with never a look back . . .

"Blast it!" Mystique muttered as she watched them drive away.

**"WHAT A BUNCH OF DOODY-HEADS!" **said an obnoxious voice. **"MR. SALAMANDER SAYS LET'S GET 'EM!"**

All eyes turned to Pietro, who gave them a stupid grin. He waved the puppet around like a flag, until Mystique grabbed it away. Mr. Salamander met the same fate as Mr. Rabbit . . . a shredding courtesy of Lance, followed by a shower of fabric confetti.

"Mr. Salamander, meet my friend, Mr. Wastebasket!"

Pietro was ticked off—he'd spent days making those puppets. "What is your **problem**, Lance?"

"My problem is you and your stupid puppets!" Lance shot back. "You're getting **really **annoying, you know that?"

"My puppets are not annoying!"  
"I wasn't talking about the puppets!"

**"MR. HORSEFLY SAYS LEAVE HIS PAL PIETRO ALONE!"**

"Horsefly? Where?" Toad's long, sticky tongue shot out into the air and snagged the puppet.

"Hey!" Pietro protested. He tried to grab Mr. Horsefly away, but Toad wasn't finished with him yet.

"Mine!"

"Mine!"

**"Mine!"**

**"MINE!"**

Tad let out a wail that got everyone's attention.

"What's wrong, Taddy?" Todd asked, as if the baby could answer.

While he was distracted, Pietro snatched Mr. Horsefly back and stuffed him into his pocket. (It was a good thing he had designed himself a practice suit with pockets.) The puppet war was far from over.

Another morning.

Another rude puppet awakening.

Pietro had worked extra-hard on this one, and he wasn't about to let all that work go to waste.

He tiptoed past Tad, who was sleeping in his room this time around, and searched through his closet until he found a megaphone. Puppet in one hand, megaphone in the other, he crept to the bottom of the stairs. 

**"GOOOOD MOOORNING, BROTHERHOOD!"**

There was the thud of someone falling out of bed.

**"UP, UP, UP!"** he exclaimed.** "RISE AND SHINE! A NEW DAY AWAITS YOU!" **He started to sing "Here Comes the Sun" in the squeaky puppet voice, but as he didn't know half the words, it was mostly "la la la".

A tousled head peeked over the upstairs railing. Lance had known who it was right away—it was like the guy made a **career **out of annoying people. Or was it just the people he lived with?

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Lance demanded.

**"SEVEN-THIRTY!"**

"In the morning! On a Sunday! Have you lost your **mind**?"

The others were getting up to see what the noise was. Todd was mad that whoever it was had woken up Tad. Fred had been pulled out of a dream about all the pizza he could eat. And Mystique was just mad on general principles.

Pietro slowly backed away as they came for him. "Uh, guys . . . it's not me! It's the puppet's fault! Isn't that right, Mr. Possum?"

Mr. Possum was strangely silent.

"We don't like Mr. Possum," Lance said, in an eerily calm voice.

"We didn't like Mr. Rabbit, either," Todd said in a similar tone, "did we, Tad?"

Tad reached for the offensive puppet, but Pietro pulled it away. "No! They're **my **puppets! I made them!"

"And I told you not to," said Mystique.

They had him backed up against the wall now, and there was no escape.

"No . . . don't do this, please!"

"End of the line, Mr. Possum!" Fred grabbed the puppet away and ripped it apart till it was no more than shreds of felt.

"NO!" Pietro knelt down and gathered up all the pieces, as if he could put it back together.

Someone stepped on his hand.

He yelped and looked up. From down here, Mystique looked like an angry giant.

"Now it's your turn," she said with an evil smile.

**"Noooooo!" **Pietro got to his feet, pushed past her, and ran screaming out the front door.

The boys and Mystique stared after him.

"Who forgot to put the bolts on last night?" she demanded. No one answered.

"Oh, well," she said at last. "Go search his room for any more puppet-making materials."

"What are you gonna do?" Todd asked. Tad was chewing on the sleeve of his pajama top, but he didn't notice.

She rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding? It's too early in the morning! I'm going back to bed."


	5. Climbing Mt. Fred

4. Climbing Mt. Fred 

"Get him off me!"

"Huh? What?" Toad had been dozing on the couch (well, the arm of the couch—Lance had another of his headaches and was taking up the whole couch), but the shout had woken him up. "What?"

"Tad! Get him off me!" Fred repeated.

Sure enough, on top of Fred's massive tummy was a sleeping baby in Teletubby PJs.

"How'd he get up there? A ladder?"

"Very funny."

"He can't hurt you! He's only a baby!"

"He makes me feel fat!"

"News flash, Freddy: you **are fat," said Lance. Then he ducked a hurled plastic cup thrown at his head by an enraged Blob. It hit Todd on the nose.**

"Ow!"

"Serves you right, jerk."

"What did I do?"

"You didn't stop Lance from calling me fat!"

"Uh . . . I hate to break it to you . . ." Toad said, and ducked.

"**I AM NOT FAT!"**

"Oh boy," Toad moaned. There were few things more frightening than an angry Blob. He leaped out of the way before Fred squashed the couch.

Lance was not so lucky. He got flattened, which didn't help his headache much. "Ouch! Get off me!"

"Sorry." Fred got up, leaving Lance sprawled out on the floor. "Want me to help you up?"

"Okay." That was the thing about Fred's temper tantrums: they never lasted long.

"Hey, where's Tad?" Toad asked.

"I put him on the cushion over there."

Tad was awake, looking around but not making a sound. Todd picked him up. "Maybe I should put you in your crib?"

"Gah bah," said Tad.

Pietro came rushing in, brandishing a newspaper. "OhmyGodyougottareadthis!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

He shoved the paper in their faces. In the upper-left-hand corner was the headline, FROG BABY CHOKES ON DRAGONFLY.

Even though he knew Tad was fine, Todd still couldn't help feeling anxious. "Oh no!" he said, flipping through the paper to find the story.

"Hey, turn back," Lance said. "I wanna see the Page 5 Girl." 

Todd glared at him. "You can have it when I'm done." He finally found the story, towards the middle.

"Is he dead?" Fred asked.

"No, he's okay. His mom got him to the emergency room in time. She's not letting him out of her sight until he's old enough to know better."

"Yeah, you shouldn't try to swallow anything bigger than your fist," Pietro said.

Tad looked over his brother's shoulder at the alleged photo. (_Weekly World News photos tend to look like drawings, mostly because most of them are.) "Gee goo!" he gurgled, trying to touch the other baby. "Bah gee gah!"_

"Yeah, that's the frog baby. Isn't he cute?" Toad said.

"I bet **he doesn't sleep on other people's tummies," Fred grumbled.**

"Oh, will you give it up? He's a baby, it's not like he's gonna hurt you!"

"He's got a crib! Why does he have to sleep on me?"

"Because you've got the softest tummy of everybody in this house," Lance said.

"Why, I oughta--!"

Mystique came back from the store. "What's going on?" she demanded.

"Tad keeps sleeping on me!" Fred complained.

"Well, put him in his crib!"

"But he's not asleep now!" Todd said, and then looked down. Tad's little head was leaning on his shoulder, and his eyes were closed. "Guess he is now."

"See? What have you got to complain about?" Mystique started putting away the groceries. "You know, you **could help me."**

"Or we could not," Pietro smirked.

Mystique gave him her I-haven't-got-time-for-this glare. "Take the frozen stuff down to the freezer," she ordered him.

"Aw, why me?"

"Cause I'm putting Tad to bed," Toad whispered.

"I'm not feeling good," Lance said, and went to lie down again.

"Well, what about Freddy?" Pietro whined.

"He can help too—NO!" Mystique looked over to see Fred helping himself to an entire package of Ding Dongs. "Put those back!"

"I can't! There's none left!"

"You're supposed to put the food into the cabinets, not your stomach!" She took a break from berating Fred to give Pietro a glare that suggested he might want to put that frozen stuff away **now.**

Pietro picked up the heavy paper bag and lugged it down the stairs, muttering threats and curses against Mystique under his breath.

Later that night, Pietro hit upon the perfect plan. If he could get at least one person in the house on his side, maybe they could get rid of the blue witch before she drove them all crazy.

He tiptoed into Lance's room, where Tad's crib was currently set up, and planted a small tape player under the baby's pillow. He pushed PLAY, and then hurried out of the room before anyone noticed he was gone.

"Uncle Pietro is the greatest guy in the world . . . he's way smarter than anyone else around here . . . Uncle Lance is a loser . . . Fred eats too much . . . Auntie Mystique is a fascist . . ."

It might have worked, except for one small thing—Mystique coming in to check on Tad. She heard the recording and recognized the voice. 

"Why that little--!" She stalked out of the room, marched down the hall into Pietro's room, and proceeded to rudely awaken him, and then drag him by the hair into the bathroom and try to drown him.

At least that's what he claimed. Mystique's side of the story was that he had slipped and fallen into the tub, and his flailing arms accidentally turned the water on. Fortunately, it was cold water, but his screams awakened everyone in the house.

Mystique told everyone to go back to bed (she even rocked Tad a little and patted his bottom till he went back to sleep), and when they had all gone, she turned back to Pietro with fury in her eyes.

_Uh oh._

"What was that business with the tape recorder all about?"

"I was just—"

"You were just calling me a fascist."

"Well, that's what you are!"

"You do **not have the right to call me names! I take care of you, I put food on your table and a roof over your head. Don't you ****dare disrespect me!"**

"Fine! Don't order me around!"

"If we didn't have rules in this house, it wouldn't be standing very long, would it?"

"That doesn't mean you need to be mean about it."

"Getting mean is the only way to get you off your butts and actually **do something."**

"So what? It'd kill you to say _please once in a while? C'mon: you treat us like five-year-olds, we're gonna act that way. You treat us like adults . . . maybe we can get somewhere."_

She stared at him in surprise. "Who are you and what have you done with our Pietro?"

"What, I can't have an original thought once in a while?"

"All right, you have a deal. I'll try to be nicer, and you . . . leave Tad alone."

"Okay."

"Here." She tossed him a towel. "Dry yourself off and then go to bed."

The next day, the boys took Tad for a walk.

At least that was the theory. The problem was that Tad's stroller was an old model, bought second-hand; one of the wheels didn't move at all, and another spun freely on its own. It took two people (or one Fred) to push the stupid thing. 

It didn't help that the street was so hilly you practically needed mountain-climbing equipment to get from one end to the other. 

Lance, Fred, and Toad were grumbling as they lifted the stroller (which weighed a ton as well) over yet another pothole.

"*@#$!" Lance cursed. "Stupid thing!" He would have kicked it, but didn't want to break his foot.

"Hey, watch your mouth around Tad, yo!"

"Sorry."

For half an hour, they dragged Tad around town, wrestling the stroller over curbs and trying to steer out of people's way, but having trouble. The defective wheels wouldn't go the way they wanted—not without kicking them, anyway.

Finally they got back home. Tad, miracle of miracles, had managed to sleep through all the lifting and cursing and kicking. Todd carried him in on his shoulder, and put him into his crib, which was in Fred's room today.

"At least he's not on top of me," Fred said.

"Are you still going on about that?" Mystique sighed. "You act like he weighs a ton. He's not that heavy!"

"I can't go anywhere when he's on top of me! What if I have to go to the bathroom? Or if I need to get something to eat? I'll drop him!"

Mystique rolled her eyes and said, "Trust me, I don't think he'd fall off that stomach."

"Hey!"

"C'mon, you have to admit, you're not exactly svelte," Lance said.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean everyone can just climb all over me!"

"True," said Pietro.

Everyone looked at him. Was he actually being nice for once?

"With all that blubber, nobody could even get a foothold."

Guess not.

Mystique quickly stepped in before Fred could react. "Pietro, do you remember what we talked about?"

"Not using your hair gel?"

"No, the **other thing we talked about."**

He looked blank.

"Last night?"

"Oh! Last **night!"**

"What I said goes for everyone in this house. Even Fred."

"Aw, but—"

"If he says he's sorry," Fred said, "I'll forget about it."

Pietro gulped. "Uh, sorry, Fred."

"Like you mean it!"

"I **do mean it!"**

"Okay."

And that was the end of that. An understanding was reached: Fred would not be used as a cushion, and he in turn wouldn't sit on anyone. Even if they deserved it.

There was still the problem of Tad's stroller, however. There was no way they could get by with the one they had, but they didn't have the money for a new one.

"So we steal it," Toad suggested, his solution for everything.

"No!" Lance said. "Didn't you promise Mystique you wouldn't any more?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't have to find out, yo."

"If only," Fred said, "we knew someone who had a lot of money. Or maybe, we knew someone who knew someone with money . . ."

They all looked at Pietro, who looked uncomfortable. Ever since they had found out that Magneto was Pietro's father, they had tried to use his connections to get more money and better stuff. So far, it hadn't worked.

"He's out of the country," Pietro said. 

"Where? Some place they don't have phones?"

"I don't know. But he told me not to call him unless it's an emergency."

"And this doesn't count?" Toad demanded. "What if that thing breaks and Tad gets hurt? That's an emergency!"

"He won't think so."

"Why don't we just ask Mystique?" Fred said.

They looked at him.

"Yeah, **you ask her!" Lance said. He had an idea of his own, but he didn't want to bring it up. It would sound dumb out loud, and he didn't want them laughing at him . . .**

"Well, we gotta get the money some way, yo!"

"How? Robabank?"

"What if I could get it?" Lance found himself saying.

Toad looked interested. "How?"

"Trust me. I just have to ask someone . . . she should say yes."

"She?" Now Pietro was intrigued. "Who?"

"Kitty."

TO BE CONTINUED . . . 


	6. Kitty and the Stroller

5. Kitty and the Stroller 

Tad needed a new stroller. There was no question about it. But Kitty Pryde didn't know how to get it to Toad without anybody at the mansion finding out.

But first, she needed to find a way to hide a baby stroller where no one would find it, not even during room checks. The rooms were searched every so often, mostly for drugs or other contraband. (The most interesting thing turned up so far had been a Maxim under Kurt's mattress. He'd gotten a lecture about objectifying women.)

How was she going to get away with this? Even if she was able to hide it (she ended up putting it in the closet when Rogue was in the bathroom), how could she get it out without anyone seeing?

She worried about it for a week, moving it between the closet and under her bed so no one would find it. Lance hadn't been in school, so she couldn't talk to him. Should she take the direct approach?

And then one day, luck smiled upon her.

She woke up late Saturday morning, and everyone had already left for whatever it was they had planned to do that day. Leaving her all alone.

YES!

Quickly she dialed the number for the Brotherhood house, hoping Mystique wouldn't answer it. If she did, Kitty would disguise her voice or something.

She was in luck once again—sort of.

"You have reached Bayville High's hottest guy! Leave your name, phone number, and what time you want me to pick you up for our date at the sound of the beep. Beeeeeeep!"

"Quit fooling around, Pietro!" Kitty scolded him.

"Oh! Kitty! Hold on, I'll get—" There was a thunk as he put down the phone.

She waited, expecting Lance to pick up, but then she heard Todd's voice. "H'lo?"

"Hi. I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No, Tad was nice enough to do that. If he doesn't get his bottle by seven AM sharp, he starts making noise."

"I hope you fed him."

"Oh yeah. He wakes us up a couple times a night, but when you feed him he goes right back to sleep."

"That's good."

"You got the . . .?"

"Yeah, I can bring it over to you—"

"No! I mean, don't come over here! Uh, hold on." There was a long pause, and Kitty wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep. Then he came back. "We'll meet you at the park in . . . an hour?"

"Okay."

When she got to the park, she saw Lance sitting on a bench, Tad in his lap.

"Bah gee goo!"

"Hi, Tad!" She picked him up and held him, but didn't spin him around this time. (Once barfed on, twice shy.) "Hey, Lance."

"Hey, Kitty."

Tad giggled and played with her hair, trying to put it in his mouth. "Gah bee doo."

"No, no, Tad! Aunt Kitty's hair isn't a chew toy!" She tried to pull it away from him, and he looked like he was about to cry.

"Here." Lance stuck a binky in Tad's mouth. "Did you bring the stroller?"

"Yeah." It was still in the box. Lance helped her open it, and then they struggled to get it (the stroller, not the box) unfolded. It was an umbrella type with big red wheels and a red fabric seat.

"Put him in," Kitty suggested.

Lance buckled Tad into the stroller and wheeled him around the fountain, listening to Tad squeal with delight. "Is this fun, Taddy?"

Tad waved his hands in the air and clapped them enthusiastically. "Gah bah dah doo!"

"You like that, don't you?" Lance bent down to Tad's level . . .

And then the worst possible thing that could have happened to Lance, did—Tad barfed all over him the second he picked him up.

"Oh, yuck!"

Kitty winced and turned away. "Ooh, poor Tad!"

"What about poor me?" Lance groaned. "I'm a mess!"

"Do you have, like, another shirt you can change into?"

"No, I didn't think of it. He doesn't usually barf all over people."

"Maybe he's sick."

Lance took a look at Tad, from a safe distance. "He doesn't look that sick. Maybe I went too fast with him."

"I'm gonna go see if I can find a place that sells shirts," Kitty said. "You think he'll be okay?"

"Oh, sure," Lance said. Tad was pulling on Lance's shoelace now, but thankfully he wasn't putting it in his mouth. "Uh, Toad and Fred should be back any minute. They went to get something to eat."

"Oh, okay." Kitty looked around, but none of the stalls around the park seemed to have any T-shirts. Balloons, snacks, phone cards, and other souvenir-type stuff (who'd want a souvenir of boring old Bayville?), but no shirts.

Then she spotted a storefront across the street with "USA" shirts featured in the window, and she crossed over to check it out.

Oh, yeah, they had shirts. Shirts in all sizes—even little baby-sized ones. Tad could probably use a change of clothes himself. She picked a really cute one, and a plain black one for Lance, and even got some cute scrunchies for herself.

When she came out, Lance was holding Tad on his lap, face-out in case there were any more accidents.

"Look what I got you!" she said, holding up the baby shirt.

"Uh, Kitty . . ." Lance said. "That's pink."

"So?"

"You can't put Tad in a pink shirt!"

"Why not? See, it's got little froggies on it—"

Lance glared at her. "Tad is a **boy! Boys don't wear pink!"**

"Sure they do! C'mon, Tad, let's see if it fits." Kitty pulled off his old shirt and started to put the new one on . . .

Toad and Blob came around the corner and saw them.

"Look what I got!" Kitty said, showing off Tad in his new shirt. Lance had gone to discreetly change his splattered clothes behind the fountain.

Todd saw the shirt and went ballistic. "Get that thing off him!" he screeched. Heads turned all over the park.

"What? It's so adorable! Look what it says here: 'Have a hoppy day!' Get it?"

"It's PINK! Tad don't wear pink, yo!"

Kitty made an exasperated sound. "One pink shirt isn't gonna, like, totally change his life! It's just a shirt!"

"Bah gah!" Tad said, as if for emphasis.

Todd grabbed the bottom of the shirt and yanked it upward. It got stuck somewhere around Tad's underarms and would not move. He pulled harder, and Tad began screaming.

"You're hurting him!" Kitty took the baby from him and pulled the shirt back down. "By the way, there's the stroller."

Todd looked it over. "'S nice. How much do I owe you? I think we got some money left over—"

"Don't worry about it."

Lance came back, after changing and rinsing out the stained shirt. "Oh, you're back."

"Wanna snow cone?" Fred held out the dripping remains of a blue frozen treat.

"Thanks, I'll pass."

"What happened to you?" Todd asked, looking at the damp shirt in Lance's hand.

"Tad happened. He barfed all over me."

"He **did?" Todd took his baby brother back and looked him over. Tad didn't ****look sick . . . but it was hard to tell with a little baby. He wasn't fussy or anything. Maybe he'd just been bounced around a little too much.**

"Let's take him home," Todd said. "Thanks for the stroller. I'll pay you back somehow."

"I said don't worry about it. Consider it, like, my late baby gift to Tad." Kitty smiled and waved bye-bye to Tad.

"I'll call you!" Lance yelled after her as she disappeared into the crowd.

Todd put the baby into the stroller and buckled him in. "How's this thing roll?"

"Like a dream. Get this—all the wheels move in the same direction!"

"Ah, the high-end model." He tried it out. It did push easier, but anything was better than that old piece of junk they had.

When they made it home, Tad was starting to fuss a bit. It was almost noon, so he was probably hungry. Todd tried to give him a bottle, but Tad didn't want it. Strange. He didn't need to be changed, either. Maybe he was just tired.

"Where have you been?" Mystique demanded.

"Took Tad for a walk in the park." He put Tad in his crib, patted his back for a while, and the baby went right to sleep. "He had fun in his new stroller—"

"Till he threw up on me," Lance said. "He wrecked my shoelaces, too."

"New stroller?" Mystique asked.

"Long story."

"I have time."

"Uh . . ." Toad and Lance looked at each other. "We sort of borrowed it from someone."

"Stole it, you mean."

"No! She let us have it!"

"**She? Don't tell me you actually have a girlfriend."**

"Girlfriend? No! I mean . . . she's just a friend. Someone from school. You don't know her."

Mystique stared at him, not sure whether or not to believe him.

Tad slept until about six-thirty, and the first thing he did was barf on his new pink frog shirt.

"Poor little Taddy," Todd said. "I think he needs to go to the doctor."

"You're calm," Pietro said. "How come you're not rushing around yelling 'Call 911! Call 911!' ?"

Todd glared at him. "I'm not a total moron, you know."

Pietro was about to say something nasty when Tad threw up on him.

"Eeewwww! Tad! No!"

"He can't help it! He's just a little baby! And he's sick!"

"He was **aiming for me!"**

"No he wasn't! Were you, Taddy?"

"Oh, would you stop arguing?" Mystique demanded. "I'm going to the store. Get him changed, and I'll see if I can find something for his tummy."

After she left, Todd took his baby brother into his room and changed him into his jammies. Then he rocked Tad to sleep, which didn't take long at all. He'd take Tad over to see the doctor in the morning.

In his crib, Tad slept soundly. He clutched his favorite toy, Ribbit. He loved the stuffed frog more than anything else in the world, except of course for Todd. Ribbit made him feel all safe and happy.

The next day, Kitty came by to see how Tad was.

"He's fine," Todd said. "The doctor said he just had a bad reaction to the new formula, so we switched him back to the old one, and he's better now."

"That's good," Kitty said. "Hi, Taddy!"

"Gee gah!" Tad reached out for her.

"You look like you need huggle-wuggles," Kitty said.

"Huggle-wuggles?"

"Yeah. Come here, Tad." She picked him up and snuggled him close. Tad gurgled with delight and tugged on her ponytail. "Gee bee dah goo!"

"Ow! Careful, Tad! You'll pull my hair out!"

Tad squeezed Kitty's nose lightly, and then began chewing on her necklace.

"No, Tad!" She worked it out of his mouth. "That's not for eating. Where's his binky?"

"Here." Fred gave it to her, and she put it in Tad's mouth. 

Tad looked happy. He loved his binky almost as much as Ribbit. Aunt Kitty was becoming his favorite person—well, his second favorite, next to Todd. "Gah bee mah gah!" he gurgled around the plug in his mouth.

Lance disappeared for a bit, and then came back with two $20 bills. "This should cover the stroller and the shirts," he said. "And this is for you."

And he gave her a kiss full on the mouth. It wasn't a long kiss, not with everyone watching, but it was definitely more than a thank-you.

Kitty stood there for a moment in shock. Then she said, "Uh . . . I gotta go. See you guys! Bye, Tad!"

"Gah goo!" Tad waved a chubby hand and gurgled happily. He liked Aunt Kitty. Maybe she could come live with them all the time. That would be fun.

"I don't think we should tell Mystique about Kitty being here," Todd said. "She might get mad."

"Why?" Fred asked. "Kitty's nice. She doesn't **pretend to like you and then make excuses to not be with you . . ."**

"Oh, will you get over it already?" Pietro snapped. "Tell him to get over it, Lance—uh, Lance?"

Lance was off in his own world. "She smells so nice," he sighed.

"That's not what I smell," Toad said. "I think someone needs to be changed."

Next: Uncle Magneto babysits!


	7. Uncle Magneto Babysits

6. Uncle Magneto Babysits 

Tad was sleeping in Auntie Mystique's room this time around. Auntie's room didn't have as many fun things as the other rooms (Auntie was always picking him up and telling him "No!"), but she had the rocking chair, and she always rocked him for a little while before putting him to bed.

It was morning now. Tad opened his eyes and looked around. Auntie was still sleeping.

A moment later, her alarm went off.

When she didn't shut it off right away, Tad added his own noise to the din, and finally she poked her head out of the covers. "What the--?"

She reached out and shut the alarm off. Then she hauled herself out of bed and went to Tad's crib. "Good morning, my sweet little squoozie-woozie," she cooed as she picked him up. "How's my little pumpkin? Huh? Who's a good little—"

The door opened a crack. "Uh . . . Mystique?"

"What do you want?" she snapped, in her normal voice.

"I, uh, need to tell you something." It was Pietro. "Number one: they cancelled school today. Broken water pipe in the basement or something."

"And where did you hear this?"

"Somebody called here looking for you."

"Well, why didn't you wake me up, if it was that important?"

"Uh . . ." _Cause you would have bitten my head off? "Well, anyway, I took the message."_

"Yes, thank you." She put Tad down on the bed to change him. "Grab me a Onesie and a diaper, will you?"

"Okay." He was back in seconds with both. "Should I go heat up a bottle?"

"No . . . I think we'll try giving him some cereal today."

"I'll get a raincoat." Tad, like most babies, tended to splatter food everywhere when they tried to feed him. The last time, he'd managed to score a direct hit on the ceiling. 

"He'll be fine." If she had to, she'd tie his arms down. "What was the second thing?"

"Huh?"

"You said two things. What was the other one?"

"Oh." He looked almost ashamed as he told her, "Magneto's coming by sometime today."

**"What?" The Brotherhood's supreme leader hadn't met with them personally for months. "Why?"**

"He didn't say." For some reason, Pietro had trouble looking her in the eye.

Mystique did up the final snap on the Onesie, picked Tad up, and carried him out to the kitchen. It was only when she had finished strapping Tad into the high chair that she turned on Pietro. "What did you say to him?"

"Wha? Nothing!"

"You must have told him **something to make him come all the way over here. What was it?"**

"Nothing! I swear!"

"Bee gah dah!" Tad said, banging his spoon on the tray. It was almost as if he were trying to join in the conversation . . . but his pediatrician said it might be a few more months before he could put words together.

Mystique finished mixing up his cereal . . . but a funny thing happened when she tried to give him the first spoonful. Tad spit it out, and started chewing on the spoon.

"No!" She pulled it away from him and tried again. This time Tad swallowed the cereal, **then chewed on the spoon.**

"What's the matter? Aren't you hungry?" She tried to take the spoon away from him, and he cried.

"Okay, okay, I guess you are." When the cereal was all gone (divided more or less evenly between inside Tad and on the floor), she tried some applesauce. This went a little better, but the floor was sticky by the time she gave up the struggle.

Fortunately, the boys were up, and she pressed them into service wiping down the floor, the chair, and Tad, before giving them breakfast.

"Whoever doesn't have last night's homework finished," she warned them, "had better do it today. In fact, right now would be a good time."

"But it's only eight o'clock!" Toad protested.

"Exactly. You'll have it all done and out of the way. And I want to see it when you're finished."

"Oh, man!"

"Get to it." She turned to Pietro. "I know you already have your homework for the entire year done, so . . . you get to watch Tad."

"**What?"**

"Now! I'm going to get dressed. Put a clean outfit on him as well." She thrust the sticky baby into Pietro's arms, and disappeared, chuckling evilly, up the stairs.

Pietro looked down at Tad, who was chewing on his sleeve. "Yuck! No, Tad! You'll mess up my second-best pair of pajamas!"

"Dah." Tad didn't look at all worried.

_Oh well, Pietro thought. __It's just for a couple of hours. How much trouble can the kid be?_

Six hours, two naps, a bottle, and three Teletubbies videos later, Tad was bawling his head off . . .

Pietro looked out and saw Magneto at the door. "Thank God you're here," he said. "He's been screaming for over an hour, and I can't get him to stop! What do I do?"

"What are you talking about? Who's screaming?" Then he looked down and saw the baby in his bouncer seat. "What is **that?"**

"That's Tad," Toad said. "My baby brother."

"Since when do you have a baby brother?"

"Since my loser dad dumped him on me!"

"Is there a loser mom?"

Mystique said, "We can't seem to reach her."

"Well, keep trying! I'm not happy about the way you dropped the ball on the Hill girl. We don't need to become a day-care center on top of that!"

Tad stopped crying and looked up at this strange intruder. He was sure grumpy. Maybe he needed huggle-wuggles to cheer him up. He reached up . . .

"What's he doing now?" Magneto demanded.

"I think he wants you to pick him up," said Lance.

"Oh, no you don't! Not after what happened to me the **last time I picked a baby up! He threw up on me!"**

Pietro winced. "Are you gonna hold that against me for the rest of my life?"

There were barely-surpressed giggles, which Magneto ignored. "We need to get this child into proper day care. This isn't the proper place for a baby."

"We don't have any **other place to put him!" Toad insisted.**

A watch alarm beeped. "Well, that's it," said Lance. "We gotta go or we'll be late for the movie."

"Movie? What movie?" Magneto inquired.

"We're going to the movies," Fred said. "I want the Super-Large popcorn!"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Magneto held the baby out towards them.

"We can't," Pietro said hurriedly. "The movie's rated PG-13 and anyway little babies aren't very good at movies soyougettowatchhimbye!"

"Wait!"

But they were already in the car, pulling out of the driveway at a dangerous speed. It was just as well that Tad wasn't in the car.

Which left Magneto holding him. "Great," he muttered under his breath. "I am not a babysitter!"

Tad began to cry.

"Wonderful." Magneto tried to remember what his wife had done when the twins were fussy. Something involving jiggling them up and down, or something. He tried to think of what to do . . .

Something dripped down onto his face.

"Ugh!" The kid was **chewing on his helmet! "I am not a chew toy! Get off of there!" He attempted to disengage the wriggly little Tad from his helmet, but it only made the baby cling harder to it. Finally, he took the helmet off and put it and the baby on the floor.**

He sat down and rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

_Okay, the movie's two hours . . . then there's travel time . . . so they should be home by—_

He suddenly became aware of a _bonk! sound from behind him. Turning his head carefully, he saw Tad, in the helmet, crawling into the wall. Just what he needed, a hole in the wall **and a dent in his helmet! Not to mention the drool.**_

"Give me that." Magneto pulled it off the baby's head and sat down to wipe the drool out of it. Tad just crawled away on his own. He was so quiet that Magneto completely forgot about him. All he could think about was _Two and a half hours, no more than that, and how long has it been already?_

Tad crawled around the first floor for a while, picking things up and chewing on them for a while, then putting them down and going off in search of something else. He wondered why this Uncle Magneto was such a grouch. Didn't he like Tad? All he did was yell at him!

He came to the foot of the stairs. Okay, this didn't look so hard. Like climbing up on Uncle Fred's tummy—one hand and one knee at a time, pulling himself up . . .

He got to the seventh step before he slipped and tumbled back down to the bottom.

Magneto was polishing the inside of his helmet when he heard Tad cry.

_I forgot all about him!_

He rushed into the other room and picked up the baby from the foot of the stairs. Looked like he'd been trying to crawl up and had fallen. Fortunately the stairs were carpeted, and he wasn't seriously hurt. Just a little bump on his head.

"Ssh . . . ssh . . ." Magneto tried the jiggling thing again, and this time it worked. Tad's sobs tapered off to little sighs and sniffles within a few minutes.

Then Tad tried to chew on his finger. Though his kids hadn't been babies since the Reagan administration, Magneto put two and two together and figured it out.

"You're teething, aren't you, baby?"

"Gah," Tad said.

"Do you have some kind of a teething ring somwhere?" The twins had had blue donut-looking things, he remembered.

"Gee bah doo!"

"Right, that's my fault for expecting you to understand me." Magneto shifted Tad to one hip and began looking around for anything that looked like a blue donut.

It wasn't in the living room. So he tried the kitchen. He found some very old Chinese food in the back of the fridge, but no teething ring. Meanwhile, Tad was starting to fuss again.

Wait a minute—hadn't his wife kept them in the freezer? The cold helped their gums, or something. He looked, and sure enough, there it was.

He started to hand it to Tad, then remembered that the baby hadn't been fed yet. Should probably do that first. He found a bottle in the fridge (next to a pizza with green stuff on it that he hoped was some kind of vegetable), but had no idea how long to heat it for. 

Rather than experiment, he called Mystique's cell phone.

"What?" she snapped, when she finally answered.

"How long do I put Tad's bottle on for?"

"You called me out of a movie for **that?" Someone shushed her, and she lowered her voice. **

"I haven't had to take care of an infant for years! You went off and left me without any sort of instructions, so it's your job to tell me what to do."

"I'll tell you what to—"

"What was that?"

"Nothing." She sighed. "Thirty seconds on high. Make sure you shake it before you give it to him. Sometimes all the hot milk settles on the top, and I don't want it to burn him."

"Thirty seconds on high."

"Don't forget to burp him afterwards, and then you can change him and put him to bed."

"Change him?" Magneto froze at those words.

"Yes, change him. Change his diaper. I don't care how long it's been, a diaper is a diaper! The tapes go in back, and the thick part goes between his legs. His pajamas are in the top drawer of the bureau in Toad's room. He likes his green blanket, and his stuffed frog. Anything else you need to know? Can I get back to my movie before it ends?"

"Yes, all right."

She hung up. 

"Well, that wasn't very nice," Magneto said to Tad, who was sitting on the kitchen counter. "Thirty seconds on high, she said."

While the bottle heated, Magneto planned how he was going to get back at Mystique for sticking him with babysitting duty without any instructions. The diaper-changing alone was worth an extra training session or two . . .

The feeding went well, although when it came time to burp him, Magneto forgot to put a cloth on his shoulder. Actually, he remembered too late—right after Tad spit up down his back.

"Twice in one lifetime," he sighed. "I don't believe it. What am I, a baby-barf magnet?"

The only thing he could find to put on was one of Lance's grunge rock T-shirts, and a pair of sweatpants that had seen better days. It would do until his uniform finished the wash cycle. Thank goodness it didn't have to be dry-cleaned.

He found the baby's pajamas, and the diapers, and set Tad down on the floor. Tad didn't make it any easier by squirming around and trying to get away. "Oh, no you don't."

Finally, Magneto worked out a system that allowed him to unsnap Tad's overalls with one hand while holding him down with the other. _See, this isn't so hard . . ._

Then something squirted him in the eye.

_Why couldn't you have been a girl? Girls don't do that!_

Just when Magneto thought this wonderful evening couldn't possibly get any worse, the doorbell rang. He couldn't leave Tad alone on the floor, so he picked him up, bare bottom and all, and went to answer it.

Two teenage girls were standing there holding a stack of papers. "Um," the closer one said, "is Ms. Darkholme in?"

"No, she isn't." As he shifted Tad from one hip to the other, he became aware that he **really should have finished putting the diaper on first.**

"Well, can you give her these when she comes home?"

"All right," Magneto sighed.

"Are you her father?" the second girl asked.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. "No, I'm not!" Magneto snapped, and slammed the door.

By the time Mystique and the others came home, Tad was safely in bed, and Magneto was back in his own clothes—and not a minute too soon, he felt. He was just beginning to recover from the trauma of being barfed, peed, and drooled on, all in the same few hours.

"How was he?" Mystique asked.

The look Magneto gave her was cold enough to freeze an open flame.

"That bad?"

"Not bad, exactly . . . can someone explain how a little baby can produce so much . . . mess?"

"What mess?" Mystique asked.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SHIRT?" Lance shouted from the laundry room.

"Minor diapering accident." Magneto had a headache the size of Jupiter right now. He just wanted to go home and sleep it off, although traveling in his present condition was probably not a wise idea. 

"He's not that bad," Mystique said. "I'll admit I wasn't crazy about the idea when he showed up here, but he sort of . . . grew on me."

"I've noticed," Magneto said, pulling a ball of blue yarn out of the knitting basket. He stood up and put on his now drool-free helmet. "I've never had a night worse than this one. I'm just glad it's over."

Mystique looked at the phone. "Why is the message light blinking? Did someone call?"

"No," Magneto said.

"Oh," Toad said, "that's from this afternoon. Some guy called from this hospital with a weird name—Short Hills or something . . ."

Magneto froze. Oh, no. Please, God, no.

"He said they were ready to release somebody named Wanda. We can pick her up tomorrow."

Pietro looked terror-stricken. "**Wanda? Oh, no!"**

Magneto had sat back down on the couch. Somewhere, someone was laughing at him. This made baby drool look like a day at the beach. 

Next: Wanda comes home for the holidays!


	8. Wanda's Home For the Holidays

7. Wanda's Home For the Holidays 

Wanda Maximoff had been in the institution for almost seven years. She thought. The days were all the same here—gray and boring. No one ever came to see her except the doctors, and that Professor Xavier who was supposed to be trying to teach her to control her powers.

He was just like her father. They were **all just like her father. No one really cared about her at all.**

And now they were letting her go **home? With **him**? She'd rather be in a straitjacket for the rest of her life.**

A nurse came up to her. "Miss Maximoff, I've been notified of the hospital's decision to discharge you into your family's care as of today. Someone will be picking you up at three P. M., so I suggest you—"

"This **can't **be for real," Wanda said, almost inaudibly.

"As far as I know, it is."

"But every time I've been up for re-evaluation, they've turned me down! How come they're just letting me go just like that?"

"As I understand it, your family has arranged for alternative therapy . . ."

_Yeah, _Wanda thought. _Torture, probably._

It wouldn't have been so bad if she'd had a visitor once in a while. She and her brother, Pietro, had once been as close as two sibling can be, but once she went away, it was as if she had never existed. She hadn't gotten so much as a postcard from him in all this time . . .

It was probably her father's doing. He'd put her in here in the first place. There was no **way **she was going home with him.

"What if I don't want to go?" she asked.

The nurse looked at her. "Don't want to? Now, why on Earth wouldn't you want to go home to your family?"

"You don't know my family."

"Oh, don't be silly, dear," the nurse said. "They can't be **that bad!"**

_You have no idea . . ._

Wanda's mind turned back to the rainy night she'd first been brought here. Daddy, standing by the car while she was dragged away, deaf to her screams for help . . .

Every light fixture in the room simultaneously exploded. The terrified nurse went to get help, but by the time she returned, Wanda was sitting on the floor amid the broken glass, crying her eyes out.

She raised her head. "Please, don't let him do this to me again. Please!"

The nurse sighed. "I'm afraid you don't have a choice."

Back at the Brotherhood house, Pietro was unpacking his most prized possession, his mother's menorah. He was just polishing it up when Tad crawled over to see what he was doing.

"Da?" he said, looking at the big shiny thing Uncle Pietro was holding.

"That's a menorah, Tad. Can you say 'menorah'?"

"Bah-bah."

"Me-no-rah."

"Bah-bah." He tried to put one of the candles in his mouth, but Pietro took it away.

"No, no, no, Tad, that's not for eating. That's a candle. We light it, and say prayers, and . . . stuff."

"Gee doo," Tad said, clapping his hands and going for another candle. Pietro lifted the menorah up out of his reach. 

"No! That's not a toy! It's an important . . . um . . ." Tad was too young to understand religion, so how to explain it to him?

"It's just important, okay?"

Tad seemed to understand that. "Gabba bah doo!" he cooed, and went to look for someone else to play with. Once he was gone, Pietro got the menorah down again.

His foster parents were Protestants, but they respected his religion. They usually found some excuse to be out on the eight nights of Hannukah, giving him time alone to do what he had to do.

The practice carried over into the Brotherhood house. After a lot of stupid arguments and eventual bribery, Pietro had gotten the other residents to leave the house for a few hours. He didn't really **need to get rid of them, he just didn't want them wandering in and asking questions he wasn't prepared to answer.**

Like "Whose presents are those?"

Every year, from the time he first had pocket money, he had bought gifts for Wanda, hoping this was the year that he'd get to see her. When Hannukah was over, he put them away, unopened, in his closet till next year. Someday, he figured, she'd come home, and then he'd give them all to her at once . . . and then maybe she'd forgive him for letting their father put her away in the first place.

The staff at Shady Hills had never been so glad to see someone go. Wanda Maximoff had been a terror from Day One, and had seen the inside of the Isolation Room more than once. Frankly, they were running out of punishments for her. The only thing that seemed to help her were her sessions with Professor Xavier.

Somehow, in all the confusion, the staff forgot to tell him that Wanda was being released. The first he heard of it was when he showed up for their session as usual, only to be told there wouldn't be one today. Or any other day, for that matter.

"She's nowhere near ready!" he told the doctor in charge. "You can't just release her!"

"The family's arranged for alternative therapy," the doctor explained. "It's out of my hands."

An orderly brought Wanda in. She didn't look happy to be leaving.

"What are **you** doing here?" she asked Xavier.

"I came for our session," he said, "but it seems we've already had our last one."

"Can't I stay? I mean, I still have issues with my father . . . he left me here years ago and he's never even been to visit me! Now all of a sudden he wants to bring me **home**? What's he up to?"

"Maybe he's not up to anything. Maybe he's had a change of heart and genuinely wants you home."

"I doubt it."

A brunette woman in a gray suit stepped forward. "Ready, Wanda?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm a friend of your father's. I'll be overseeing your training while he's . . . away."

"Great," Wanda grumbled. "He's not even here to welcome me home."

Raven Darkholme noticed Xavier. "Hello, Professor."

"Ms. Darkholme." He nodded to her. They knew each other's "secret identities", but couldn't acknowledge them in public. 

Raven took Wanda by the shoulders and started leading her away. 

Xavier called after them, "I hope to continue Wanda's sessions as soon as possible."

Darkholme looked back at him. "That," she said, "has already been arranged."

They walked out to the car, where an older woman waited in the passenger seat. "This is Agatha Harkness, Wanda. She's the one who'll be training you."

Wanda took one last look over her shoulder at Xavier, whose expression was blank. 

_Help me._

Then she got in the car, and they drove away.

Pietro had spent the day doing something nice for Wanda, to make her like him, and maybe even forgive him. He had decided to paint her new room.

He went to the hardware store, and bought several cans of shocking pink paint. (He remembered that she liked pink—everything on her side of the room had been pink when they were kids.) It took quite a bit to cover up the black paint that Rogue had insisted on painting her walls. Then when he was done with that, he applied the leftover paint to the furniture, and as a finishing touch, hung pink curtains in place of the funereal black drapes. The result was a room that looked like it belonged in Barbie's Dream House, but he was sure she'd love it.

"Perfect!" he said. He started to back up to get a better look, and nearly tripped over Tad.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Ah?" Tad looked around at all the pretty pink.

"This is Auntie Wanda's new room."

"Babah?"

"Wan-da."

"Babah," Tad repeated. "Ahdee Babah."

"Fine, have it your way."

"She's here!" Toad called.

Pietro raced downstairs to find the rest of the household already assembled, in their best clothes (or reasonable facsimile thereof). He looked down at his paint-spattered clothes, briefly considered calling it a new fashion trend, then changed his mind and dashed upstairs, returning in something a bit less painty.

He looked down at Tad, and then pushed him to the front. Then Pietro zipped to the back of the line, so she wouldn't see him right away.

The front door opened. Mystique came through first, holding the door for a young girl with black hair and sad eyes. Tad looked up at the visitor, who stared at him as if he were something that had just crawled out from under a rock.

The older woman behind her said, "It's okay, child. No one here will hurt you. We all want to help . . ."

"Who the heck's this?" Pietro demanded.

Wanda took one look at him, and all hell broke loose.

"YAAAAAAAAH!" She lunged at him like a runaway train and grabbed him somewhere that **really **hurt. All the while, everything in the room that wasn't nailed down was flying around as if in a hurricane. The boys ducked behind the sofa to avoid being hit by flying debris, or body parts.

"Ahdee Babah?" Tad inquired.

"Auntie Psycho's more like it," observed Lance. "They let her **out **of the hospital?"

Mystique intervened before any serious damage could be done. "Wanda, Pietro, stop it right now!"

Pietro rubbed his neck and gasped for air. "Sure, blame me."

"Go to your rooms and calm down, and I'll call you."

Wanda glared at her. "I don't even know where my room is!"

"I'll show you!" Toad jumped from behind the sofa and sprang to her side. 

Wanda glared at him. "Out of my way, you little—"

"That will **do**, Wanda," said the older woman, who still hadn't introduced herself. "I'll help you find your room."

Toad watched them climb the stairs. "She gonna like her room?" he asked Pietro. 

"Yeah, I painted it her favorite color."

"AAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" came the scream from upstairs.

"Why can't she use her indoor voice?" Fred asked.

"What's wrong?" Mystique ran to the foot of the stairs.

"PINK! IT'S **PINK!**"

"So? You love pink!" said Pietro.

"I **hate** pink! It's the most disgusting girly color in the whole world!"

"You used to love pink!"

"Yeah, when I was six!"

"Hey, I was just trying to make things nice for you! Don't say thank you or anything!"

"Enough!" said Mystique. "Wanda, as soon as you're settled in, we'll paint your room a different color. In the meantime, let's try not to kill each other, shall we?"

"All right, all right!" Wanda threw up her hands and went to unpack what little personal belongings she had.

"Sheesh!" Pietro said, when she was well out of earshot. "How was I supposed to know she didn't like pink?"

For the next three weeks, Wanda trained with Agatha in the use of her powers (or, at least, the use of them without killing any family members). At the same time, Pietro was trying to adjust to life with an unpredictable sister.

He wished Magneto hadn't fled the country, on "important, urgent business", just before Wanda arrived. He also wished that Wanda wouldn't keep throwing fits every time he came in the room. At the rate she was going, she wouldn't last the next few days, let alone start school in January.

But Wanda surprised everyone by being absolutely on her best behavior—at least, until Thanksgiving. Just as she had finally managed to control her powers . . . her father showed up.


	9. Tad's First Christmas

8. Tad's First Christmas 

(This is a bit long, but I finally finished it! Next chapter will be up as soon as I can type it out.)

"Guess what, guys?"  
Fred came in the door all excited.   
"What? New all-you-can-eat buffet opened up?" Toad guessed.  
"Nah! Better!"  
"You won the National Foods Cooking Contest?" said Lance.

"No, even better!"

Pietro looked bored. "Will you just tell us already?"  
"Okay." Fred reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a red-and-white hat. "Ta-daa!"  
In the silence, he could almost hear crickets chirp. No, that couldn't be right. No cricket was safe with Toad in the house.

"That's it?"

Fred couldn't believe how stupid they were. "No, that's not it! I'm the new Santa at the mall!"  
"No way!" Toad said. He looked around for that cricket that had been chirping.  
"Way! I've got the suit and the beard and everything! I start the day after Thanksgiving!"

"You, a Santa?!" laughed Pietro.

"What's wrong with me being Santa? They said I didn't even need padding or anything!"  
"That's for sure," said Toad.

Normally Fred hated it when anyone called him fat, but right now he was so hyped up about the Santa thing that he didn't even notice. "I gotta go practice!"  
"Practice what?" Lance asked. "You can't say 'Ho, ho, ho'?"  
Pietro got that evil look in his eye. "Speaking of ho's--"

"Excuse me?!!" demanded his sister Wanda indignantly, l looking like she wanted to do him in with the nearest convenient blunt instrument.

"I wasn't talking about you!"  
"Sure you weren't! You were looking at me!"

"Well, I . . ."

She hit him.

Hard.

"Ow!"  
"Hey!" Fred stepped between them. "Santa says be nice!"

Wanda stared at him. "Huh?"

"You're not the real Santa!" Pietro said.

"I could be."

"I don't have time for this!"

"Neither do I." Wanda grumbled. "Let me at him!"

"You can't beat up Santa!" Toad said.  
"HE'S NOT SANTA!"

Even Lance was getting into it . . .

There was the sound of a slammed door.  
The front door, to be precise.   
"Uh oh . . ." said Toad.  
Mystique was home.

"What is going on now?" she demanded.

Wanda and Pietro wasted no time pointing fingers at each other.

"He called me a--"  
"She said she was gonna--"  
"Quiet or I'll tell your father!"

That shut them up pretty quickly.

She looked at Fred, in his Santa hat. "And what are you all dressed up for?"

"I'm gonna be Santa at the mall this year."

"You? Santa?"

Fred nodded.

"Are they paying you for this, or is it a volunteer deal?"

"$10 an hour." Fred told her.

"WHAT?" Pietro squeaked. "For sitting on your butt and listening to little kids? I want in on this!"   
"Too late. They've already hired all the Santas they need."  
Pietro took the sofa cushion out of his shirt and sighed. "Figures."

"You'd make a lousy Santa anyway." Wanda razzed him.

"Shut up!"  
"You shut up!"

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP!" Mystique yelled. She was getting a headache. "I'm going to my room. If you have anything further to say to each other, you can discuss it with your father when he comes for Thanksgiving."  
Both of them went pale. "He's--he's coming here?" Wanda gasped.  
"Yes," said Mystique. "He said something about wanting to spend the holidays with you."

"You've got to be kidding."Pietro insisted. "He wants to come here? Hasn't he got better things to do? Like taking over the world or whatever?"  
"Look, I just talked to him on the phone, okay? He said he's coming, and he wants to have a real family holiday."  
Wanda was especially bitter towards her father, after all she'd been through. She started to say something harsh about her father when Fred stepped in again.

"Take it easy, Wanda!"

"Or what? 'Santa' won't bring me any toys?"

"He wouldn't bring us any anyway, Wanda." Pietro scoffed.

"That's for sure," said Toad. "You both act like jerks."

Both twins turned on him, and were about to pound the slime out of him, when Mystique grabbed them by their collars.

"I will not have you two behaving like this when your father is here! Now go to your rooms!"  
"HEY!" They both protested.  
"If you're going to act like five-year-olds, that's how you'll be treated," Mystique said. "You're not to come out until dinnertime."

Glaring at each other, Wanda and Pietro stomped upstairs to their respective rooms, and slammed the doors.

Fred turned his attention to putting on his Santa suit.

"Well?" he said, when he was finished.  
Mystique frowned. "Couldn't they have found you a bigger size?"

"They looked."

"And you have to wear this when?"

"Every day till Christmas." said Fred.

It looked ridiculous. The bottom of the jacket and the waistband of the pants hardly met. And as for the hat, it barely covered the top of his head.

"Hmm," she said, "we can fix it, I hope. Where's Pietro?"  
"Uh, you sent him to his room," Fred said.  
Mystique went up and knocked on Pietro's door. "If you're ready to behave like a human being," she said, "I have a job for you."  
"Is Wanda involved?"  
"No."  
"Okay."

"Now then, Pietro," Mystique said, "if you can be nice, what we have for you is a simple tailoring job."

Pietro blinked. "Tailoring?"

The door banged open, and he stood there with tape measure in hand. "You ask, I'll make. What did you have in mind? Some nice lingerie? A new costume, perhaps--I can see you in black leather, for some reason . . ."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Very funny."

"Pietro . . ." Mystique warned.

"Well, let's face it, the Blob-man here needs a new wardrobe."

Fred held up his Santa cap. "What's wrong with this?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong with it. You've got a size Small suit on an XXXXL body, that's what."  
"Hey!"  
"I'm just telling it like it is, pal. Hmm, let me see . . . I think I have some fabric to match that. I can put in some panels along the sides . . . maybe something on the bottom of the jacket . . ."  
Three hours later Fred showed off his newly-redesigned Santa suit. 

"Now that's more like it." Pietro said.

There was only a slight variation between the color of the pants and that of the side panels Pietro had added. The strip around the bottom of the jacket was hidden by an extra layer of fake fur. Even the hat was a little bigger.  
It wasn't perfect, but the little kids would never notice.  
"See? All ready, and we've still got three days to make any more changes."

Two days later, Magneto arrived on schedule for the Thanksgiving feast.

Toad braced himself for disaster.

The Brotherhood did not do Thanksgiving well. Or any other holiday for that matter. He still shuddered when he thought about the time Pietro had tried to make a Hanukkah meal . . . .

********  
  


"These pancakes taste funny," Fred said.  
Pietro's jaw nearly scraped the floor. "FRED! Those were for tonight!"  
"Whuh?"  
"But you're kicking us out of the house tonight!" Todd pointed out. "You want to be alone so you can eat pancakes?"

Pietro wanted to hit Toad in the worst way. "That's not why I want you guys out of the house."

"Well, why, then? It's not like it's some big secret that you're Jewish! We'll stay out of your way! What?"  
"You wouldn't understand," Pietro said. "Hey, Freddy, you gonna leave me some of those?"  
"Huh?"  
  
********  
  
"I'm not sitting next to him, and that's final!"  
So much for calm.

"We don't have time for this, Wanda--"

Tad was in his high chair, dressed in his big-boy suit (which would probably be covered in food by the end of the meal, but no one cared). Mystique had taken a little of the dinner and ground it up in the food processor. She was very proud of him. Today, Tad was the least of her problems.  
The seating arrangement had to be adjusted so that Wanda and Pietro weren't sitting next to each other. But she couldn't put Toad between them, because his pathetic attempts at flirting made Wanda furious. She couldn't put Magneto on their side of the table, either, unless she wanted to listen to them argue all day.  
In the end, she decided Magneto would sit at the head of the table. Going around to the right, it went: Lance, Pietro, Toad, Tad, Wanda, Fred, and then Mystique. This way nobody was next to anyone they didn't want to talk to. It had taken her six tries to get it right.  
The only remaining problem now was that Fred insisted on wearing his Santa suit to the table.  
"Don't you have something else that fits?" Mystique asked.  
"I wanna get the feel of it, before I wear it for real tomorrow."  
"What if you spill something on it?"  
"It's washable!"  
"I don't care! You're not wearing it!" As if she didn't have enough of a headache already.  
"It's the only dress-up clothes I have!"  
"I'll go make you some more!" Pietro offered. "I still have your measurements from before--"  
He raced off and came back with a navy blue suit. "Took me a little longer than I thought. I was going back and forth--wide lapels? Thin lapels? Wide? Thin? Then I sort of came up with the idea to--"  
Mystique grabbed the clothes out of his hands and thrust them at Fred. "Go change! Dinner's almost ready!"  
Fred lumbered out of the room. Mystique went back to the kitchen. "It would be nice," she said loudly, "if I had some help in here!"  
The limp bodies on the couch in front of the football game didn't stir an inch.  
She decided to get a little more specific. "Lance, set the table. Toad, get your brother into the high chair. There's a bib in the top drawer. Wanda, help me put these dishes on the table."  
Still no one moved.  
"NOW!"

Everybody moved then, like they were on fire.

Dinner went fine--apart from Wanda glaring at Pietro, and a minor argument erupting over the potatoes when Fred wouldn't pass them over to Lance. Then, just before the dessert, Wanda heard her father talk about grandchildren. It was only a passing remark, but it was enough to make her stand up and declare, "I am never having kids! Never! I'm not going to inflict more demon spawn on the world!"  
"Demon spawn?" This caught Toad's attention. "Who's a demon?"  
"**Guess**." Wanda's voice was like ice, and the look in her eyes was scary.  
"I think you're overreacting just a tad," Magneto said. Big mistake.  
'OVERREACTING? YOU THINK I'M **OVERREACTING**?"  
"Oh boy," said Toad. He dived under the table and made himself scarce. So did everybody else, except for Magneto, who remained locked in a battle of wits with his willful daughter.  
Tad was still strapped into his high chair, and he hadn't yet figured out how to get out of it. "Gabee dah?"

But Uncle Magneto and Auntie Wanda were too busy fighting to notice. They were yelling . . . and Tad didn't like yelling.

"Nice going, yo," Toad grumbled. "You're making Tad cry."

Wanda gave him a look that made him secretly want to run away, but nevertheless he stood firm. He told her and Pietro, "I don't know what your problem is, but you gotta work it out yourselves, yo. I mean, you're family! Families gotta stick together!" Apart from fathers who dumped their kids on their other kids' doorsteps, but he didn't count.  
"I'm not sticking with anyone who let me get locked away in the loonybin!"

"What do you mean, let you get locked away?" Magneto looked at her as if she were insane.

"You know what I mean!"

"Well I don't!" Lance said.

Wanda got up from the table. "I don't feel like talking about it. I'm going to my room."

Tad looked at Wanda.

"Ahdee," he said. "Ahdee Babah."

Wanda blinked in surprise. Was he trying to talk to her?

"Ahgoo-ahgoo," Tad said.  
"What did he say?" Wanda asked.  
"I think he's trying to say huggle-wuggles," said Toad.

Wanda stared at him. "Huggle-wuggles?"

Tad reached up for her.  
"Well . . . okay." She picked Tad up . . .

It turned into a group hug before she knew it. "Toad!" she choked. "Get off me!"  
"What? I wasn't touching you anywhere nasty!"  
"All of you is nasty!" she shrieked, pulling away.  
"Aw, c'mon, Wanda, I wasn't gonna hurt you . . ."  
"I just don't like being touched, all right?"

"Poh Ahdee Babah," said Tad.

Toad was amazed. "Hey, he's talking!"  
"He's always talked," Fred said.  
"I mean really talking! Words we can understand, yo."  
"How old is he?" Wanda asked.  
"Uh . . ." The boys were looking away.

"How can you not know how old he is?"  
"Well, we kinda know, but not exactly. See, he was just dumped on our doorstep one day."  
"Uh huh."  
"I bet Santa knows how old Tad is," Fred said. "Why don't we ask him?"

"Sada?" said Tad.

"Uh . . ." Toad said, thinking fast. "Yeah! Fred, you can call Santa on the hotline or something and ask him, yo."  
"Hotline?"  
"You know . . . the one all the mall Santas have, so they can tell the real Santa what the kids want for Christmas?"  
"Oh yeah!" 

"Are you staying for dessert, then?" asked Mystique.

Wanda shrugged. "I guess so."

Friday morning, Fred had to be in at 10:00 for a final briefing before he officially began his Santa gig at 11.

"What's to brief?" Pietro said. He poured himself a gigantic bowl of cereal. "Ask the kids what they want, say 'Ho ho ho', give 'em a candy cane. Sounds like the easiest job in the world to me."

"Then why'd the last Santa quit?" Toad asked. He was feeding Tad some Cheerios, the one food he liked that wouldn't stick to the walls if he threw it.

"Sahda!" said Tad.

"You'll come see me, won't you, Tad?" Fred put his Santa hat on and beamed at the baby, who looked puzzled.

"Ahgoo F'ed," gurgled Tad.

"Ooh, he's so smart," said Toad.

"You have to call me Santa when I have this on," said Fred. "I'm in disguise."

Tad didn't know what that meant. "No F'ed?"

"Uh--"

"Well, kind of," Toad said. "He's pretending he's Santa."

Tad understood pretend. "Sada F'ed."

Magneto wasn't pleased . . . until he learned how much Fred would be making for his few hours of Santa duty. "$15 an hour?"

"Well . . . they charge for the costume, and take out taxes and stuff, so it's not that much, really."

Magneto shook his head. "Who knew there was so much money in impersonating the spirit of Christmas?"

"Lots of people, yo," said Toad.

"I still don't know if it's such a good idea . . ."

"Ahgoo Sada," Tad said.

Pietro picked Tad up and whirled around the room with him. "Are you gonna stay with us and light the candles for Hanukkah?"  
"Hey! He ain't Jewish, yo!" Toad said.  
"How do you know? You don't even know who his mom is!"

"Sada F'ed," Tad repeated.

Mystique looked at Tad. "It doesn't matter what he is. We're having Christmas anyway."

Before another argument could erupt, there was a shout from upstairs.  
"Mystique! Wanda's in the bathroom and she won't come out!"

Mystique rolled her eyes. Oh, God, I really don't need this right now.

She went up and pounded on the door. "Wanda! What's going on in there?"  
Suddenly, she heard Wanda throwing up. "Oh, no," she muttered under her breath.

She threw the door open. What she found was Wanda looking like she had three seconds to live.

"Let's get you back to bed," Mystique said, picking the girl up.

Wanda could barely stand. Pietro looked at her and asked, "She catch something at school?"

"She hasn't been to school yet." And by the way she was retching, it didn't look like she was going to make it to school either.

"Maybe somebody else got something at school and gave it to her," said Toad.  
"But nobody else has been sick!"  
"How do you know? You could have had it and not even known it, cause you healed before you got any symptoms." Pietro's rapid 

metabolism was the next best thing to a healing factor. But Toad was right, he still would have been contagious.

And knowing their history with diseases, Mystique decided the thing to do would be to take Wanda to the hospital.

"Help me carry her to the car," she suddenly instructed Toad and Lance.

Wanda realized what was happening and fought back with all her remaining strength. "No! No! I won't go back there! You can't leave me again!"

"Ahdee Baba?" said Tad.

Mystique held the girl in her arms. "Ssh. Ssh, no one's leaving you anywhere. I just want to get you checked out. I promise I'll be right there with you the whole time."  
"Ahdee?" Tad didn't understand what was going on.  
"Auntie Wanda's sick, Tad," Toad explained. "She's going to the doctor."  
"Ahgoo-ahgoos?"  
"No, I don't think you should give her huggle-wuggles. You might get what she's got."

Tad looked at Wanda. "Lubboo."  
"What did he say?"  
"I think he was trying to say 'Love you'," Todd said.

Wanda's eyes misted over . . . or maybe that was from the flu. "Love you, Tad."

"Boy, she must be sick," Pietro said. "That's the first time she's ever said she loved anybody."

Tad gave Pietro a look. He did his Mystique impression well, for a not-quite-one-year-old.  
"What?" Pietro grumbled.

"Ahgoo P'etro . . ." chided Tad.

"What?"

"Ooh bee nas," Tad scolded.

"What did he say?" Pietro wasn't that good at translating Baby to English.  
"I think he said 'Be nice'," said Fred.

Pietro glared at him. "Don't you have to go, Santa?"

"No faht." said Tad.

"Sorry, Tad," Pietro said. Then he wondered why he was apologizing to a baby.

With that, Fred left. Wanda and Mystique were already gone.  
"Ahdee Babah," Tad said sadly.  
"Aw, don't worry, Tad," Toad said. "Auntie Wanda'll be back soon. She'll be fine."

Wanda was thinking about Tad all the way to the hospital. She'd sworn, just yesterday, that she would never have kids, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if they turned out like Tad.  
  


As long as her evil father didn't get his hands on him, that is.

  
Around two o'clock Mystique came home.  
Alone.

"No Ahdee Baba?"moaned a clearly distraught Tad.

"She had to stay at the hospital," Mystique explained. "The doctors needed to give her some IV fluids. They said we can pick her up tomorrow."  
"Tomorrow?" Magneto wasn't too happy with that.  
"What about Hanukkah?" Pietro moaned. "I haven't even finished putting up my decorations yet!"  
"I'm afraid we'll have to have the first night without Wanda," Mystique said.  
But what about the presents? How would he give her all the gifts he'd been saving for her?  
"Does this hospital have visiting hours?" Magneto asked. "I think I have an idea."

Hospital visiting hours ended at seven, so they had to move quickly.

In her hospital room, Wanda played with the remote, just to pass the time. There wasn't anything good on anyway.

She hated being sick . . . but at least here they left her alone, and she needed all the time alone she could get right now.

Little did she know, she wouldn't be alone much longer.  
  
"What room number is it?" Pietro asked. Why did he have to carry the heavy stuff?  
Magneto checked the slip of paper they'd given him at the front desk. "408. Should be right down here somewhere . . ."  
They walked past it without even knowing, and had to double back.

Wanda heard the footsteps . . .

"Surprise!" Pietro said, as he came through the door carrying the bag full of presents.  
Wanda was surprised all right. "What are you doing here?"  
"We couldn't let you miss the first night of Hanukkah, so we brought it to you," her father said.  
Wanda's eyes nearly fell out of her head. "You came to see me?"  
"Things are going to be a lot different from now on," Magneto told her.  
Pietro started unpacking the bag. "They wouldn't let us have a fire in here, so we did the next best thing." He taped up a paper menorah with one candle lit. Wanda smiled at his ingenuity.  
"And then there's this." He opened the other bag, and eight clumsily-wrapped presents tumbled into her lap.  
"What's this?" Each of them had her name on it.  
"Uh . . . well . . . Iboughtyoupresentseveryyeareventhough--"  
"Slow down!"  
"I bought you presents every year," he continued slowly, "even though I never got to see you. There's more, but I thought we'd go night by night instead of all at once."  
Wanda was touched. Here she'd thought her family had forgotten about her, and all this time . . .  
"Thanks." She went to hug him, but he pulled back.  
"Whoa! Germs!"  
"Sorry."  
They were there till the end of visiting hours, and Wanda was sad to see them finally leave. She was happy to be part of a family again.

Fred's second day as relief Santa went about as well as his first. He had a couple of crying toddlers, and one five-

year-old who kept kicking him in the shins (leg-swinger), but other than that, it was pretty cool.  
Just before six, he saw Toad and Tad in the line. Tad waved at him.

Tad started to say 'Uncle Fred', but Toad cut him off. "Hi, Santa!"  
"Hah, Sahda!" Tad said, getting the hint.  
When he saw the price list for photos, Toad's jaw dropped. "Ten bucks for a freaking picture? What, do they mail it from the North Pole?"

"Kinda." said Fred/Santa.

"Now I know why you're getting $15 an hour."  
Their turn finally came, and Toad lifted Tad up onto "Santa's" lap.   
"And what do you want for Christmas, little--hey!"  
Tad recognized a familiar tummy when he felt it, and now he was curled up on top of the fake fur, asleep.  
"No sleeping on Santa's lap!"  
"Forget what I said," Toad said. "I'd pay ten bucks for this picture."  
Fred gave him a very un-Santalike look.

Tad loved sleeping on Uncle Fred's soft tummy, but Uncle Fred didn't like it at all.  
It wouldn't have looked good, however, for Santa to shout "Get this kid off me!"

And anyway, Toad wanted to take Tad to the little playground near Chuck E. Cheese's, so he gently picked Tad up . . .

When Tad realized what was happening, he let out a wail that could be heard at the other end of the mall.  
"Ssshhh, ssshhh."

"Wan' Sada." Tad pleaded.

"Tomorrow we'll come back and see Santa. Other kids have to have their turn." Todd smiled at the baby. "We get to play in the sandbox!"

"San'box!" Tad beamed. He loved playing in the sandbox.  
"But no eating the sand, OK?"

Tad just looked confused.

"It tastes yucky."

Yucky Tad understood. "Ah gah babbah bah dah?" he gurgled.

"We'll see, Tad," Toad answered, wondering what the heck the kid had just said.

They stayed at the playground until it was time to go home for supper. 

When they got home, Mystique called them over.  
"Wanda's home," she said.  
"Ahdee Babah!" Tad cried happily.  
"How's she doin'?" Toad asked.  
"She's better, but still very tired and weak. So don't bother her!"  
"Who, me?"

"Yes, **you."**

"Okay, okay!"  
Tad had an idea. He crawled up the stairs to Auntie Wanda's room, Ribbit in hand. The door was closed, and Tad still had no clue about doorknobs, so he head-butted the door until someone opened it.  
"Tad?"  
"Hah, Ahdee Babah!" Tad held up Ribbit. "Ibbit!"  
"Yeah, I see."

"Sah hi Ahdee Baba, Ibbit."

He waved one of Ribbit's flippers.

Though she normally wasn't that crazy about stuffed animals, Wanda waved back. "He's cute!"

"Ahdee Baba likoo, Ibbit." Tad told the stuffed frog.

Then Tad had an idea. Maybe Ribbit would help cheer Auntie Wanda up.

"Ibbit stah withoo tonah, Ahdee Babah." Tad beamed.

"Whah?" Wanda wasn't so good at translating Tad-speak.

Tad offered the frog to Wanda.

"But that's your Ribbit."

"He sah he wantoo be happee." Tad told her.

"But what about germs?"

"Ibbit no germs."

"No, no, he could get my germs." She was amazed at how well Tad was talking. Most kids that young could barely manage a few words.

If she only knew where to go to get an IQ test for babies . . .

"Okay. Ribbit can stay with me."  
Tad made a happy noise, went to hug her, then remembered about the germs. Germs were bad things.  
"Naht, Ahdee Babah."

"Good night, Tad."

Ribbit slept under the covers with her, curled up against her side.  
As for Tad . . . he spent the night with a stuffed Teletubby under his arm.  
"Naht, Dipsee." he said to the Teletubby.

It wasn't Ribbit, but at least it was green.

The next morning, Wanda felt a lot better.

She washed Ribbit and brought him back to Tad's crib, where Tad was still snuggling Dipsy.  
"Here's Ribbit," Wanda said, holding him out.

Tad took Ribbit and gave Wanda his Dipsy. "Ahdee Babah nee'," he said.  
"What?"

"I think he wants you to have Dipsy," Fred said.

"You sure,Tad?" Wanda asked.

"Ahdee Babah nee'," Tad repeated.

"OK." Wanda picked up the Teletubby doll, and Tad waved Ribbit's flipper.  
"Babye, Dipsee."

When she came downstairs with it, the first words out of her mouth were, "Anyone who laughs gets a hex bolt up the side of the head."

Nobody laughed.

The final days before Christmas were busy ones for Fred . . . and everyone else, for that matter. Nobody had anything done. 

"Mee halp, Ahdee?" Tad asked Mystique, who was wrapping presents.

  Mystique looked at Tad. "You can bring me that bag over there."

Tad toddled over to the bag, picked it up and handed it to Mystique. "Heah, Ahdee Miseek."

"You really are talking, aren't you?"

Tad nodded."'Essmee S'eet."he explained. Showing his counting skills, he said:"Un, doo, th'ee, foh, fahve..."  
Mystique was startled. She'd heard of child prodigies before, but she'd never heard of anyone learning to count this young. Even Charles Xavier, according to Magnus, hadn't started learning numbers till he was three.

"That's nice," she said.   
Tad gave her an irritated look. "No' done! Sees, seba, eat, nahn, te'."

Mystique's eyes widened...

Then someone called her from the other room . . .

"Wait right here, Tad."

Tad looked at her like he didn't understand. "Wah Ahdee go?"

"I'm just going to see what's wrong . . ."

"Ahdee com bak?"

"Of course I'm coming back! I've still got all this to wrap!"

Tad beamed."Okay.Babye, Ahdee Miseek.I p'ay Ibbit."

While Tad played with Ribbit, Mystique went to see what the matter was.

It turned out to be a simple problem....

"I can't get this to stay up!" Wanda was trying desperately but unsuccessfully to pin up a snowflake decoration.... 

"Have you tried tape?"  
"It won't stick to these walls!" She shook her head in frustration...

"Try hanging a string from the ceiling," Mystique suggested.

So she did... "Perfect!"

Tad looked around at all the presents Auntie Mystique had to wrap.... This one looked interesting. He started to rip open the box . . . but stopped when he heard Auntie Wanda....

"No, Tad, that's not for you."

"No me?" asked Tad.

"No, Tad. Anyway, we're not supposed to open them till . . ." Wanda stopped short, confused.When were they supposed to be opened, anyway? 

Tad looked at the presents, then at Wanda. "Ti' w'en, Ahdee Baba?"

"Till . . . till Auntie Mystique says you can."

Tad nodded."Okay, Ahdee Baba."

Wanda didn't even know when Christmas was. While she was in the hospital, one day had blended into the next. And that had also been true where Hanukkah was concerned.... She was still tripping over all the presents that Pietro had given her . . . when she came home from the hospital. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash from the next room. "Oh, great."she sighed.... "What have those idiots broken now?"  
In their haste to get the Christmas tree up, the boys had knocked everything off the walls and nearly decapitated each other.  
"Is it straight?" asked Lance.

Mystique shook her head.... "A little to the right."  
Toad and Fred yanked the tree so far to the right that it nearly broke a window.  
"A little, I said!"

"Sorry, Mystique."Fred said.

Their attempts to fix the seriously tilted tree sheared all the needles off one side, and nearly gave Lance a concussion.  
"This is like watching Laurel and Hardy deck the halls," Mystique said.  
All three boys looked at her blankly. "Who?"  
Wanda cleared her throat. "Has anyone seen Pietro?"

Fred just stared at her.... "I thought he was with you!"

"You don't think he ran away, yo?"asked Toad.

"Why would he do that?" Lance asked.

"To make us feel sorry for him, maybe?"

Wanda started to say something.... but a glance from Tad convinced her to drop the wisecrack before it even got out of her mouth. 

As it happened, Pietro was out buying a ton of CDs. Most of which were for himself, but some were gifts. One was a disc of children's songs for Tad....

As he went up to pay . . . he noticed something.... out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey, what's this?" he said, picking up.... a little frog figure. He pressed its stomach... and it did absolutely nothing. 

"Bummer."Pietro sighed.

Then he found one that was working . . .  and it said "Ribbit!"

Perfect!  
Then he turned it over and saw the price.

"$3.99." For _this_ little thing? 

Then he saw what else it could do... It also hopped, stood on its head, blinked and when he pressed the button on its back . . . it did a somersault.

This would be great for a stocking! Are we doing stockings?

He could just see the look on Tad's face.... So he bought it, and had it wrapped at the store.  
  
  


Meanwhile, Fred's last days as Santa were not going smoothly. In fact, he was in danger of getting fired.... 

It wasn't his fault the day guy never showed up and no one told him . . . or that the kids wouldn't sit still.

And as they got closer and closer to Christmas, the lists of demands became more and more exorbitant. They were asking for everything but gold bullion... only because they didn't know what it was. 

Why couldn't the other kids be more like Tad? He'd even put up with them sleeping on his tummy!

"What is it with you, Dukes?" his boss grumbled.

"How many more days is it to Christmas again?" Fred asked, as another little whiner jumped down.

"Three."

"I don't think I can take much more of this." And he meant it....

"If you can just hold out for a few more days . . . just till 6:00 Christmas Eve. You think you can do that?"

"I'll try..."

Tad was back. "No s'eep," he promised.

"OK, Tad."

"Tell Santa what you want for Christmas," Todd prompted him.

"F'end foh Ibbit." Tad said.

"What kind of a friend for Ribbit?"

"Odder og."

"What about you? It's okay if Ribbit wants a playmate, but what do you want?"

Tad held up a video cassette box."Tubbies."

"Okay."

Tad loved the Teletubbies more than anything else in the world...except for his big brother and Ribbit, that is.

And Aunt Kitty. Hey, there she was!  
"Aht Giggy!" Tad called to her, waving his arms.

"Hi, Tad!"

"Hi, Ahgoo Ku't."

"Hello, Tad.Vhere's Ribbit?"

"Ibbit!" Tad pulled Ribbit out from under him and waved his flipper.

"Hi, Ribbit!"

"An' Sada!" Tad added.

"Fred?" Kitty said, surprised.

"Sssshhhhh!" Tad said. "Secwet."

"Secret?"  
Tad nodded."Ahgoo F'ed p'ay Sada coz reel Sada busee mak toize."

"Oh, okay." She hadn't understood a word of that, but Tad wouldn't know that.

"Wha' Aht Giggy wa't for Kismus?"Tad asked her.

Kitty looked a bit uncomfortable, and Kurt said, "She's already had her holiday."

"Okay.Agoo-agoos?"

"Okay." She came over and huggle-wuggled Tad. He thought she smelled really nice . . .

"Aht Giggee ba'?"he asked her.

"Yes, I had a bath. Why?"

"Sme' lak so'p."

"Well, aren't you a smart little frog baby?"

"Sma't og babee."Tad repeated cheerfully.

"Santa needs his lap back." Fred interrupted.

Tad climbed down. "Bah, Aht Giggy. Bah, Ahgoo Ku't."

"Auf Wiedersehn, Tad."  
"Bye, Tad."

"Bah, Sada."  
"Bye, Tad. Next!"  
As Tad toddled over to Auntie Wanda, he heard Aunt Kitty say, "Whose stupid idea was it to have Hanukkah three weeks early?"  
"Don't azk me!"

"Ahdee Babah, what Ahnka?"Tad asked her.

"What's what?"

"Ahnakha."Tad repeated.

"Oh, Hanukkah. Remember when Uncle Magneto and Uncle Pietro and l lit the candles and said prayers at the kitchen table?"  
"Uh huh."  
"We even let you spin the dreidel," Wanda said with a smile.

"D'eidle fun." Tad said.

"Why are you asking about Hanukkah?"

"Me he' Aht Giggee an' Ahgoo Ku't tak 'bout it."Tad explained.

"Oh."

Tad looked at Wanda. "Wha' w'ong?"

"Nothing, Tad.It's just that I wasn't expecting you to ask me so soon." Wanda explained. "Most kids your age are still trying to learn how to count past five."

"Sma' 'og babee," Tad said, beaming.

"Very smart frog baby." Wanda replied in admiration. "Would Ribbit like to learn about Hanukkah too?" "Ibbit?"  
Tad nodded Ribbit's head. "Ibbit wan'."

Wanda couldn't help thinking at that moment that her mother would have loved Tad. If only she could have been here to meet him . . .

At the Xavier Institute, the halls had been thoroughly decked. A gigantic Christmas tree stood in the front hall.  
Today was the day that those students who were going home for the holidays were leaving.

There was also a rather sizable menorah on display, and Evan and Ororo had taken the liberty of setting up prayer rooms for those observing Ramadan...

"So who are we inviting to our big multi-holiday dinner?" asked Scott Summers.

"I was thinking about asking if Tad could join us," Professor Xavier replied.

"Tad?"

"I think it would be good for us to reach out to Tad and his family, in the spirit of the season."

"What if Todd says no?"

"I should hardly think he'd have any objection to Christmas dinner . . ."

"Just trying to be prepared for anything, Professor."

He made the call after the students who were going home had left.  
Kitty was staying (she and her parents had celebrated Hanukkah when she'd gone home at Thanksgiving), as well as Evan, Kurt, Bobby Drake, Rogue . . . and, of course, Scott.

Todd was feeding Tad his juice when Professor Xavier called him...

"Yeah?"

"Todd, I was wondering..."

"I didn't do it! It wasn't me! It was . . . uh . . . Pietro! Yeah, that's it!"

"Actually, Todd, I was calling to find out if you and Tad wanted to join us for our holiday dinner."  
Todd stared at the phone, wondering what was up. "You serious, yo?"

"Of course. There's always a place for you and Tad here, should you decide to join us."

"Hang on a sec."Todd turned to his baby brother and asked him. (Silly as that sounded.) 

Tad clapped his hands and giggled."Ta' go! Ta' go!"

"What about everyone else, though? Auntie Mystique? Uncle Lance? Auntie Wanda?"

"Ahdee Miseek."Tad repeated...

"What about me?" said Fred, who had just come in.

"I don't think you'd fit in their chairs, yo."said Toad.

"No Sada?" Tad said. They couldn't have Christmas without Santa!

"Uh, do you have a super-sized chair for Fred?" Todd asked Xavier.

"I'm sure I can find one."

"Cool."

"Ahdee Miseek? Ahgoo 'Needo?" Tad asked.

"Hang on, Taddy..." Todd went back to the phone. "Uh . . . can everyone come?"

And so it was that Christmas Day, Todd and Tad--and most of the rest of the Brotherhood--found themselves at the Xavier Institute, celebrating with the X-Men.  
Fred even wore his Santa suit.

"He p'ay Sada coz real Sada busee."Tad explained to Storm.

"Oh, I see."

"Wan' p'ay with Ibbit?"

"What's an Ibbit?"  
"Ibbit!" Tad held up Ribbit and waved his flipper.

"Oh, your frog! Hello there." She took Ribbit from him.

Tad saw Kurt Wagner. "Hi, Ahgoo Fuzzy!"

"Uncle Fuzzy?"Kitty giggled.

"I like being Fuzzy," Kurt said, picking Tad up and nuzzling him.

Tad giggled again and played peekaboo with Kurt....

"Where's the presents, yo?"

"Todd!" Kitty protested.

"What? We don't get any? I got you somethin'!"

"I just meant that you should wait until later for the presents. We're having dinner, then opening presents."  
"Ohhhhh. Why didn't ya say so?"

Tad clapped his hands."P'esent!"he giggled.

"Later, Tad. Not now."

Tad looked a bit disappointed, but took Ribbit over to see Auntie Wanda.  
"Wha' w'ong?" he asked her.

Wanda glanced down at Tad and said, "I feel like I shouldn't be here."

"Id okay,Ahdee Baba."said Tad,reaching out to hug her.

"GROUP HUG!" Pietro blurred up beside them, reached out, and squeezed both of them . . . prompting Wanda to yelp "OUCH! Pietro,you're squishing me!"

"Oops!" He loosened the death grip a bit, and stroked Tad's fuzzy hair.

"Dinner's ready!" Jean called from the kitchen.

They put Tad in a high chair. "Where'd you get this?" Todd asked.  
Jean blushed, but said nothing.

"Lub Aht Jeen."Tad said.

"I love you too, Tad," Jean said. "I wish you could come live here with us."  
"Wha' 'bout To'?"

"Wow,I've never seen a kid so attached to his big brother." Scott said to Evan.

"Bet you wish Alex wasn't so far away, huh?"

"You can say that again."

The seating arrangements had been the biggest problem . . . especially given how huge Fred was. The rivalries between certain X-Men and Brotherhood members also presented a problem. Fortunately, Xavier knew exactly where to put everyone to cause the least amount of problems. 

And everyone agreed that Tad should be right between Todd and  Kitty. 

"Aht Giggy," Tad sighed.  
"I just hope she didn't cook," muttered Pietro under his breath. 

Lance heard that, and whacked him under the table. 

Something about Tad's presence seemed to have a calming influence on all of them, because Christmas dinner went surprisingly well. Pity Tad didn't come along sooner, Magneto mused when dinner was over. 

"P'esents! P'esents!" Tad kept saying to his big brother.

"Yeah, time to open the presents!" Todd leaped into the living room and pounced on the pile of presents under the eight-foot tree. "I'll hand 'em out."  
"No!" Tad said. "Sada do!"

Santa?" Evan said, not sure what Tad meant.

Fred lumbered forward. "Hand 'em over, Toad."

Toad sighed. "Sure, I'll be your little elf."

Todd handed the first present to Fred. "Okay, this first one's for Tad."

"Yay!" Tad tried to open the wrapping paper by biting it.  
"No, no, Taddy! We don't eat wrapping paper!" Todd took it away and "helped" him open it. "Wait, who's it from?"

"Ahdee Babah." said Tad.

"Let's see what nice thing Auntie Wanda got you." 

Much to Tad's delight, it turned out to be a pink frog that looked just like Ribbit. Named, appropriately enough, Pinkie.

"Pinkee!" Tad squealed. He reached for Ribbit. "Ook, Ibbit. Dis Pinkee."

Tad waved Pinkie's flipper at Ribbit and made Ribbit wave back.  
"Awww . . . isn't that cute," said Kitty.

"Who's next?" Fred--Santa asked.  
Todd picked up the next one off the pile. "To Kitty from Kurt. Oh, look, there's little blue hearts all over--"

"Just give her the package already." Lance sighed.

Fred handed it over. Kitty, looking very embarrassed, opened it carefully . . . and found a beautiful book of poems.

"Ooh! This is nice!" she said, reading the inscription inside. "Where'd you find it?"

"Someone recommended it," Kurt said,with a glance at Rogue.

"OK,"said Toad,"this one's from "us, to Tad."

Tad looked happy he was getting another present. "Tubbies?" he asked Toad.

"Let's see." He ripped the paper off . . . and sure enough, there were Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po on the cover of a Teletubbies tape.

"Tubbies!"  
Pietro looked bored. "Can someone besides Tad open something?"

Wanda rolled her eyes. "Give Prince Whiney one of his," she said to Fred.

Fred picked up a package marked "To Pietro from Tad".

"Gee, I wonder what this is?"

Tad giggled. Uncle Pietro was funny sometimes.

Pietro opened it . . . and saw a sweater, which Tad had helped Wanda pick out.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Pietro exclaimed. "This is pink!"  
Wanda just smiled.

"W'at w'ong, Ahgoo P'etro?"

"I . . . uh, don't look good in pink."  
"How's it feel?" Wanda said. "Don't worry, I kept the receipt. I just wanted to see your face."

Pietro rolled his eyes."You've got a sick sense of humor,you know that?"  
The gifts went on all afternoon, into the evening. The most amusing gift was a set of talking Teletubbies for Tad. It was a joint gift from Kurt and Evan.

"Tankoo, Ahgoo Ku't, Ahgoo Ebb'n." said Tad, making Dipsy and Tinky-Winky dance on the table. 

But the best gift of all was . . .  
"Ooh! Kiddee!" Tad opened a large box with air holes all over and found a tiny kitten staring up at him.

The kitten meowed and tentatively reached out a tiny paw . . .

"I think she wants to come out and see you," said Toad.

"Let me help." Fred reached in and held the kitten up in front of Tad.  
"Hi, kiddiee." Tad said.

"Mew." The kitten rubbed up against him, which made Tad giggle.  
"Kiddee kiss me!"

"What are we gonna call him?" Lance said to Toad.  
"Since she's Siamese," Mystique said, "how about Sagwa?"  
"What-the?" Toad looked at her funny.  
"How do you even know if she's a girl?" Wanda asked.  
"The man at the pet shop told me," Mystique said, "when I bought her. She's a purebred Siamese, had all her shots and everything."

"What about Mei Ling?" said Lance.

"That's so cute!" said Kitty.

"May?" Tad said. "Hi, May."  
"Mew!"

"Tankoo, Ahdee Miseek." Tad said as he stroked Mei's fur.

"ACHOO!"

Everybody turned toward Pietro, who was wiping his nose.  
"What?"

"Kleenex, Pietro?" Mystique said, holding one out.

"Thanks. Ah-CHOOOO!" His head felt like it was about to explode.

"Isn't there anything you can give him to make him stop sneezing?"Wanda complained to Magneto.

"I suppose," he said. "I could try giving him the antihistamine I took earlier. But we have no way of knowing if it will work."

As for Toad and Tad, they were busy playing with Mei.

"Nice kitty." Toad said, stroking Mei's back.  
"Nas kiddiee." Tad repeated, listening to Mei purr.

"ACHOO! Nice kitty that's--AH-CHOOOO!--sniff--killing me!" Pietro looked over at his father. "Hey, why aren't you--AHH-CHOOOOO!"

"Oh, calm down, Pietro," Magneto said, and handed him a pill. "Take this and see if it helps."

Pietro was skeptical, but took the pill anyway. It seemed to work at first, but then . . . he passed out.  
Tad looked alarmed. "Ahgoo P'etro die?"

"No, Tad, he's just sleeping off the antihistamine." Magneto said.

"We can't keep him in a coma all the time . . . can we?" Wanda asked.

"No, probably not."  
"So what do we do?"

"I might be able to modify the formula to work better with his unique metabolism . . ." Magneto's forte' was engineering, not biochemistry, but he was pretty sure he knew what to do.

He mixed a formula which would keep pace with Pietro's metabolism . . . and it worked just fine.

When the festivities were over, and it was time for Tad and the others to go home, Kitty couldn't resist one last little huggle-wuggle on Tad.

"Merry Christmas, you sweet little baby!"

"Me'y Kismus, Aht Giggiee!" said Tad.

"God bless us, every one!" Todd shouted, and dragged them all together for one great big group hug.

"God help us,you mean," Magneto sighed, feeling himself get squished between Kurt and Fred.

"More eggnog?" Xavier offered.

"Only if it's highly alcoholic."


	10. Tad the Genius

9. Tad the Genius 

After Christmas break, Wanda noticed something about Tad.

He apparently could read.

He was playing with alphabet blocks, and he had them arranged to spell FROG.

_Nah . . . _Wanda thought, and then watched as he spelled ADEE. His word for "auntie".

_How can he know, at his age, what letters and words mean? I didn't learn to read till I was five. He's only a year old!_

"How did you learn to do that?" she asked him.

Tad looked up. "Essmy 'Eet."

"What?"

"Bih Bihd."

"Oh, 'Sesame Street.'" Wanda looked down at another set of blocks which said CAT.

"Ahdee lahk?"

"Uh . . . yeah," she said. She was amazed at his verbal ability and his thinking skills, and she wondered if anyone else had noticed . . .

"Do you think," she asked Mystique later, "we could get Tad's I. Q. tested?"

Mystique looked at her in surprise. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Because he can spell."

"**Tad**? You've got to be kidding!" The older woman laughed. "He's fifteen months old at best! He doesn't understand what letters are!"

"He spelled CAT and FROG earlier."

"He was just copying something he saw on TV! There's no way he could spell on his own, at his age!"

"I'm telling you, I **saw**—"

"Look." Mystique softened her tone a bit. "I love Tad as much as you do, and I'd be really proud of him if he **could spell, but the fact is, he's just too young. You just happened to come along at the right time and see him arrange the blocks so that they spelled a word."**

"How did you know he did it with the blocks?"

Mystique raised her eyebrows. "Are you saying he wrote it on a piece of paper?"

"You've seen him do it too, haven't you?"

"I've seen him playing with the blocks," Mystique said. "I **have noticed how quickly he picks up things. But right now, Wanda, if I were you, I'd be less concerned about Tad's education than your own."**

Wanda gaped. She'd almost forgotten that she was due to start school the Monday after New Year's. "Oh, yeah."

"You might want to start reviewing—"Mystique stopped in mid-sentence when she saw Tad reading one of Wanda's textbooks.

_He **can't be that smart, can he?**_

Then she noticed he had it upside-down. "Wha dis, Ahdee Babah?" he asked, pointing at a picture of a dinosaur.

"That's a . . . a . . . I **used to know all their names. Is Stegosaurus the one with the horns?"**

"No, that's a Triceratops," Mystique said.

"Tahsa'tops," Tad repeated.

"Very good!" Wanda pointed to one of the others. "What's that one?"

"T'anosa'us," Tad said.

Mystique looked at the caption under the picture (Wanda had turned the book right-side up): _Tyrannosaurus Rex._

Suddenly the idea of getting Tad an IQ test was making more and more sense. The problem was where to get a test for a child this young.

Then it came to her . . .

"Ahgoo Shinee," Tad said the first time he saw Charles Xavier.

"Tad!" Kitty ran up and covered Tad's mouth. "That's not a nice thing to call the Professor!"

"It's all right, Kitty," Xavier said. "I know Tad doesn't mean anything bad."

"Fessor," Tad said, and everyone smiled at him.

"Can you really spell words, Tad?" 

Tad nodded.

"Well, would you like to show me?" Xavier handed Tad several alphabet blocks and waited to see what he would do.

Tad took five blocks and turned them over, looking for the letters he needed. Then he picked up three more blocks and looked at those. Then he put some of the blocks down, and shoved the rest away. With the blocks he still had, he spelled out MISEKE.

"What's that supposed to be?" Rogue asked.

"It looks random to me," said Evan.

"Mystique. He's trying to spell Mystique," Wanda said. "He spells phonetically."

"Just like you," Pietro teased her. "Bet you get put in the stupid classes."

"Shut up, you—"

"Am I late?" A woman in an aqua lab coat joined them. Tad looked up at her.

"Hi," he said.

"So this is Tad, is it? Hi, Tad. I'm Doctor McNeil, but you can call me Susana."

"S'ana," Tad said. "Da'ta S'ana."

Dr. McNeil saw the blocks and marveled at Tad's dexterity. She also noticed that he was now spelling out SSANA. 

"How long has he been able to do that?" she asked Mystique.

"As far as I know, a few days."

"What's Ibbit?"

"What?" Mystique looked down and saw that Tad had rearranged the blocks again. "Oh, that's his stuffed frog, Ribbit."

Tad, hearing Ribbit's name, took him out and began "talking" to him. 

"Charles told me you haven't been able to locate the parents," Dr. McNeil said.

"Personally," Todd said, "I don't care if he falls off the edge of the Earth. He dumped me when I was little, and now he's done the same thing to Tad." He looked up into Susana's warm brown eyes. "How can anyone do that? To their own kid?"

"I don't know," she said. "Well, why don't we get started? I'll just need a few minutes alone with Tad . . ."

"I have an office set up for you," Xavier told her, and he led the way.

As he closed the door, Logan shook his head. "IQ tests for babies. What's next, trigonometry for dogs?"

"Vhy can't ve stay and vatch?" Kurt asked.

"It's easier for Dr. McNeil to run the tests without outside observation," Jean said. "Tad might feel pressured to perform for us if we stayed. Little kids love showing off what they can do . . ."

At first, Susana just let Tad play with the blocks. She was fascinated by his ability at such a young age—her own nephew, who was three and a half, liked blocks, but he didn't know what the letters on them meant.

Tad's spelling, as Wanda had observed, was phonetic; he spelled "baby" as BABEE, and "Toad" as TODE. But Susana knew several people with doctoral degrees who couldn't spell to save their lives. 

"Can you spell your name?" she asked him.

Tad picked up the blocks again, scrutinized each one, and then arranged them to spell TAD. Then he took the remaining blocks and spelled FORG BABEE.

"What's that mean, Tad?"

"Og babee. Me," he said proudly.  
"Okay . . ." She made a note to ask about that later.

There were a few more things she had to test before they were done, but for now it was more important to watch Tad playing spontaneously with whatever toys happened to be around.

Tad took Ribbit and bounced him up and down, singing something without any general meaning. Dr. McNeil found it interesting that Tad was learning to vocalize at such a young age. Children under two usually couldn't do that; they were limited to a few simple words like "mama" and "dada", which made her realize that she had yet to hear him use either word.

She took a series of pictures out of her briefcase. The picture-story game usually worked better with older children, but Tad seemed to be quite capable of playing along.

"Okay, Tad, I'm going to show you some pictures of people now."

Tad put Ribbit down and looked up at her.

"I want you to tell me what you think the people in the pictures are doing. Can you do that for me?"

Tad nodded and picked up the first picture. "Ahdee swing me," he said. "Ahgoo 'Ance p'ay ball."

She looked down at the picture. "These people remind you of your family?"

"Mmm-hmmm." He pointed to the next picture in the series, which was of two people petting a dog in the park. "Ahdee Babah . . . Ahgoo P'etwo." A short pause. "Buh dat no' Mei."

"Mei?"

"Mei. Kiddee."

"Oh. No, that's a doggie. You don't have a doggie?"

"Uh uh." Tad said. "Jus' Mei."

"Okay, one more." Three would be enough, she thought. She had a pretty good idea already of how Tad's mind worked. "What's going on in this one?"

Tad looked at it and said, "Dat mah big b'udder, 'Od. An' Aht Giggy, an' Ahgoo Kuht, an' Ahdee 'Ogue. We p'ay in pa'k."

"And who's this?" She pointed to the figure of a little girl.

"Don' know."

"What about her?" She pointed to the mother figure.

Tad thought about it for a minute, then said, "Aht Jeen."

"Who's that?"

"He'p Ahgoo 'Fessor at schoo'."

"I see." Dr. McNeil was impressed. "Well, Tad, I think we can go back now."

"Bahk?"

"Go back to your brother and the rest of the family, and tell them how smart you are."

Tad beamed. "Me smaht 'og babee."

When Toad saw his baby brother again, he ran over and hugged him. "Hey, Tad, how'd it go?"

"S'ana nahce," Tad said.

"That's good. So," he asked the psychologist, "how smart is he?"

"His memory is unbelievable, as is his vocabulary. He communicates like a three- or four-year-old. I'd say he's about that level in intelligence. And his reading is light-years ahead of his age group."

Tad hugged Ribbit. "Hear dat, 'Ibbit? Me smaht!"

"The one thing that bothered me," Dr. McNeil went on, "is that I haven't once heard him use the words 'Mama' or 'Dada'."

"That's because he's never met them," Mystique said. "We've been trying to find them ever since he was left with us, but it's as if they just disappeared."

"No big loss," Toad said. 

Fred asked, "Did we do something to make Tad really smart?"

"Actually, Fred, listening to adult conversation seems to have helped Tad learn grown-up words. He doesn't have enough teeth to pronounce them correctly right now, but once they come in, he'll be speaking with the same proficiency as a six-year-old."

"Better, since most six-year-olds don't have their front teeth," said Kitty, who had been missing hers in her first-grade photo.

Mystique looked at Tad with affection and said, "You're getting to be quite a smart boy, you know that?"

"Smaht 'og!" Tad said with delight.

Dr. McNeil looked at Toad and asked, "Out of curiosity, where did your brother get the nickname 'Frog Baby'?"

"It's a long story, Doc. Remember when the _Weekly World News had that cover story about the frog baby in Kansas?"_

"That black-and-white supermarket tabloid?"

"Yeah. Anyhow, we saw that the same day Tad got dumped onus. He looked kind of like the baby in the paper, so we started calling him Frog Baby. He kinda likes it, actually."

"Tad's short for Tadpole," Fred added. "I named him that."

Tad looked at Dr. McNeil and offered her Ribbit to hold. "Ibbit lubboo."

"Aw, that's nice. Thank you, Ribbit." She stroked the plush frog and moved its flippers back and forth. "Maybe Ribbit and I could meet again next week."

Tad looked at Ribbit, who "said" "Ibbit ibbit."

"Ibbit lahke," he said.

"What about you? What do you think?"

"Me wan'," Tad replied, with no hesitation whatsoever.

"Okay then," Dr. McNeil said. Then she looked at Todd. "Uh, if that's okay with you."

"Sure it's okay!" Todd felt like he'd found a new friend. If she helped Tad, maybe . . . maybe she could help him too.

After Dr. McNeil had gone, Kitty decided to do something nice for her on her next visit. She'd bake some cookies.

Unfortunately Kitty did not quite have the knack of cooking down yet, and most of her creations tended to be either hard as rocks or completely inedible, or both. Most of the X-Men were still recovering from her last batch of muffins—she'd followed the directions exactly, but failed to note the expiration date on the carton of eggs.

That wouldn't happen this time, she vowed. She'd personally check every single ingredient to make sure it was okay before she even **thought of using it. It wasn't until the cookies were in the oven that she remembered to put the milk away. It had been sitting out on the counter since breakfast—and it was now three in the afternoon.**

Oh, well. Milk couldn't go bad **that fast, could it?**

"Ohhhhhhh . . ."

Kurt had never felt this bad in his life. His insides felt like they were on fire. He was alternately hot and cold all over, and his head was pounding so bad he couldn't keep his eyes open.

"That's the last tahme we let Kitty cook **anything," Rogue groaned. She wasn't quite as bad off as Kurt, who'd eaten nearly half the cookies on his own, but at least she wasn't stuck in the bathroom like Evan, or too weak to get out of bed like Jean and Scott. "If she evah goes **near **the kitchen again, Ah'll break both her arms!"**

The professor, who'd had half a cookie to be polite, had a bad headache and an upset stomach. He called Kitty to his office and told her, "Kitty, I admire your persistence in learning to bake, but you have to be responsible as well. Food poisoning is very serious, and could even have killed someone."

Kitty's eyes widened. She hadn't realized that her cooking mishaps could actually be deadly. "I thought they were, like, kidding about that."

"This is no joke. I'll have to ask you to refrain from using the kitchen for a few weeks. Two weeks should do, I think; a month would be excessive—"

_Two weeks? _Kitty thought, in a panic. _But what if no one's home and I need something to eat? What do I do then?_

"An exception can be made in an emergency," Xavier said. "But for the most part, you're to stay away from the stove."

Dejected, Kitty sighed, feeling as if she were being sent to jail. "Okay, Professor."

Xavier hated to ban Kitty from something she tried so hard at, but the safety of the other students had to be taken into account. 

The phone rang, just as Xavier was about to leave the office. "Hello?"

The voice on the other end said, "Professor, I'm sorry, but I'll be a little late for our appointment . . ."

"Dr. Hill, our appointment isn't until tomorrow—"

"We'll be there in half an hour," she said, as if she hadn't heard, and hung up.

Great. Maybe he could call her back and cancel. But her home phone was picked up by the machine, and he didn't have her cell number. It was probably in Lindsay's file—

Then the doorbell rang.

"Coming!" he called out. He rolled past the ailing students and pushed the button that automatically opened the door. 

"Hi, Ahgoo 'Fessor!" Tad called out. He was riding on Todd's hip, but as soon as they got in the door, he jumped down.

Xavier groaned. He'd forgotten today was Tad's session with Dr. McNeil. Another person he'd have to get in touch with. Luckily he had her on speed dial. He turned to go back to his office and call her . . .

. . . and she pulled into the driveway.

"Hi, Tad!" she called out as she emerged from the Lexus. "Hello, Charles."

"Hi, S'ana," Tad said.

"I'm afraid this isn't a good time," Xavier said. "We're having a bit of a household crisis at the moment."

"Crisis?"

"I need another bucket!" Kitty called out. There was a horrible noise from the common room. "Make that two buckets!" Another horrible noise. "And a mop!"

"She cooked again, didn't she?" Todd asked. "She tried to make Lance a special birthday dinner once, ended up putting him in the hospital."

"Oh dear," said Dr. McNeil. "Maybe I **should come back another time."**

"No!" Tad clung to her leg. "Stay!"

"PROFESSOR!" Kitty screamed. "KURT JUST BARFED ALL OVER THE FLOOR!"

"If you'll excuse me," Xavier said.

"Of course. We'll just wait in here, won't we, Tad?"

Tad looked up at her. "Ibbit say hi. No' come cause bein' wathed."

"Oh, I see."

"He co' nes' tahme."

"Okay. I can't wait to see him."

At that moment, Dr. Hill and her children finally made it, though Lindsay was insisting she had the wrong day.

"Mom," she said, "it's **tomorrow**! It's Thursday I go, not Wednesday!"

"It's on my day planner."

"You put it on the wrong page by mistake! Can't we just come back tomorrow?"

"I hate this place," Robbie moaned.

"Shut up!" Lindsay told him.

"Don't say 'shut up' to your brother." Dr. Hill was trying to put her keys away with one hand and ring the bell with the other.

"Why did he have to come?"

"Because I can't leave him home by himself!" Keys away, she pressed the doorbell button.

The door swung open by itself, which Robbie always thought was cool and Lindsay was beginning to get a bit bored with. But no one was there.

"Hello?" Dr. Hill called out, as she led the kids inside. "Professor? Anyone here?"

No one answered.

She stepped inside, and headed towards the Professor's office. Maybe he was busy and hadn't heard her.

Tad poked his head out to see what the commotion was.

As soon as Dr. Hill saw this little person . . . she knew him. She hadn't seen him in almost a year, but she knew him.

"My baby!"

Tad looked up at her with a "huh?" expression. 

Todd came looking for Tad and found him staring back at this strange woman who had tears in her eyes. "Hi, who're you?"

"Who are **you**?"

Susana came out to see what was going on. "Oh, hello," she said. "If you're looking for Charles, he'll be back in a moment."

"Is this your baby?" Dr. Hill asked.

"No, he's my baby brother," Todd said. 

Lindsay looked at him funny. "He can't be **your baby brother," she said. "Mom says he's **our **baby brother."**

"Yeah, well, who are—" He took a closer look and recognized her. "You're that kid we were supposed to recruit a few months ago!"

"Who's we?"

Xavier came back and found the group in utter chaos. Questions and accusations were flying back and forth like tennis balls at the U.S. Open. "Everyone please settle down!" he shouted over the melee. This was making his headache worse. "If you'll all just step into my office, we can sort this out."

"PROFESSOR!" Kitty yelled at the top of her lungs. "NOW ROGUE'S BARFING ALL OVER THE PLACE!"

"Is this a bad time?" Dr. Hill asked. 

Xavier rolled his eyes. "If you'll all just have a seat," he said, "I'll be with you as soon as I've cleaned up the vomit."


End file.
